•oLi Perkins- I n 
'ThirtyYears of Wit! 



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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 

Chap. Copyright No. 

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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



ELI PERKINS— THIRTY YEARS 
OF WIT. 



/ 



ELI 
PERKINS 

THIRTY 
YEARS 
OF WIT 





AND 

REMINISCENCES 
OF WITTY 
WISE AND 
ELOQUENT 
MEN 



BY 

Melville D, 
Landon 

(ELI PERKINS) 



1899 

XTbe Merner Company 

NEW YORK AKRON, OHIO CHICAGO 



TH 



fi «J u 



Copyright 1891 

BY 

Cassell Publishing Company 



Copyright 1899 

BY 

THE WERNER COMPANY 

Perkins 



I 



JUN 2 3 1899 








CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

Acknowledgments and Thanks ix 

Reminiscences of Noted Men i 

Charles Sumner on Leibnitz and Kepler — Talks with Josh 
Billings, Sam Jones, Mark Twain, Danbury News Man, and 
Bill Arp. 

General Sherman's Anecdotes and Jokes -. 20 

Sherman on John Phoenix, Wm. R. Travers, General Scott, 
General Kilpatrick, Admiral Farragut, and General How- 
ard — His Joke on the Ghost Dancers, Garfield, the Irish 
Soldier, and Tennessee Women, 

Reminiscences of Wm. R. Travers 41 

Travers's Joke on the Englishman — A. T. Stewart, Joe Mills, 
Henry Clews, Jay Gould, and August Belmont. 

Chauncey Depew's Best Stories 50 

Depew on the Poughkeepsie Farm — Discussing Demand and 
Supply — The Crowded Connecticut Funeral — Absent- 
minded Daniel Drew — The Spotted Dog and Other Stories 
— Depew in Ireland — Fun with the Irish Girls — All of 
Depew's Stories. 

New Philosophy of Wit and Humor 69 

Wit and Humor Distinctly Separated — Wit, Imagination ; 
Humor, the Truth — Wits and Humorists Classified — Mark 
Twain, Dickens, Will Carleton,Nasby, Josh Billings, Dan- 
bury News Man, Burdette — Pathos. 

Wild West Exaggerations 92 

The Wit of Exaggeration — Wonderful Fishing and Hunting 
Stories — The Lying Tournament of the Press Club — West- 
ern Imagination — Wild Bill, Bill Nye, and Eli Compete, 
v 



VI CONTENTS. 

Satire Kills Error 106 

The Great Satirists: Cervantes, Dean Swift, Juvenal, Nasby 
— Christ Uses Satire to Kill Error — Satirizing the Jury 
System — Satirizing Blustering Lawyers — Satirizing Society 
and the Dude — Satirizing the Agnostic — Satirizing Huxley, 
Herbert Spencer, and Ingersoll — Satire in Politics Brings 
Letters from Blaine and President Harrison. 

Ridicule Kills Truth 139 

Ridiculing Truth and Laughing it out of Court — Randolph 
Ridicules Clay — Ingersoll Ridicules Christianity — How to 
Meet Ridicule — Ridiculing Ritualism — Beecher Ridicules 
Bob — Ridicule a Lawyer's Weapon, not the Clergyman's — 
Christ Used Satire, but not Ridicule. 

Eli Explains Repartee 156 

The Repartee of Diogenes and Aristippus of Greece, Talley- 
rand and Madame de Stael of France, Charles Lamb and 
Douglas Jerrold of England, and Tom Corwin, Randolph, 
Thad. Stevens, Sam Jones, Ben. Butler, Wendell Phillips, 
and Sam Cox of America — Blaine and Conkling's 
Repartee. 

Artemus Ward 168 

The Father of American Humor — Personal Reminiscences 
— Where Eli Perkins Got his nom de plume — From the 
Maine Farm to Kensal Green — His original MSS. left to 
the Writer. 

Bill Nye in Laramie . . 187 

How he Introduced Perkins to an Audience — He Interviews 
an English Joker — He W T rites his Biography for this Book. 

Children's Wit and Wisdom 194 

They Make us Laugh and Cry— Child Theology — Ethel's 
Funny Blunders. 

Those Wicked, Wicked Boys 199 

Their First Boots and First Pockets — That Naughty Uncle 
William — Grandma Loves them and Grandpa Makes a Fool 
of Himself. 



CONTENTS. VU 

Story-telling Clergymen 204 

Clerical Anecdotes by Dr Collyer, Lyman Abbott, Beecher, 
and Prof. Swing — Special Prayer, Baptism, and Close Com- 
munion Anecdotes — A Clerical Convention for Real Solid 
Fun. 

Doctors' Wit and Humor 223 

General Sheridan Jokes Dr. Bliss — Dr. Hammond Cures Eli 
Perkins — Dr. Monson Knows it All — The Colored Doctor 
— The Irishman's Doctor. 

Eli with the Lawyers 230 

Anecdotes of Choate, Ingersoll, and Evarts — Foraker's 
Joke on Dan Voorhees — Negro Judges in South Carolina 
— Challenging the Judge — Funny Verdicts. 

Evarts — Conkling — Governor Hill 245 

Many Legal Anecdotes — Depew Tells about Evarts and 
Bancroft — Evarts's Pig Pork — Chief Justice Waite on 
Conkling — VV. S. Groesbeck and Senator Boutwell's 
Speeches at Johnson's Impeachment. 

Henry Ward Beecher's Humor , 251 

He Makes Fun of his Poverty — His Joke on Dana — His 
Everyday Humorous Talk and Life. 

Gough's Wit and Pathos 256 

His Fall and Rise — Many Gough Anecdotes — How He made 
his Audiences Weep and Laugh — Cigars in his Hat. 

A Night with Jolly Rebels 261 

Eli Talks to Old Rebel Soldiers — Stories of old Zeb Vance, 
Fitz Hugh Lee, Judge Olds, Tom Allen, and Bob 
Toombs — The Pennsylvania Dutchman and Freedman 
Bureau School Marm. 

Political Anecdotes and Incidents 270 

General Butler and Sam Cox — Geo. W. Curtis's Anti-climax 
— Garfield's Irishman — McKinley's Interruption — General 
Alger's Story on the Democrat — Blaine's Kilmaroo Story 



Vlil CONTENTS. 

— Eli on the Prohibitionist — Horr on the Mugwumps — Dan 
Voorhees on the Darky — Lincoln on Ben Wade — Voorhees 
on Tanner — Ben Wade Disgraces a Democrat — Aristippus, 
the Greek Politician. 

Fun Up in Nova Scotia 282 

Lecture Experiences in Acadia — Riding over Longfellow's 
Basin of Minas — Nova Scotia Potato Bugs — The Acadians 
Lie to Eli — Uncle Hank Allen's Biggest Potato Bug Story. 

Eli On Children's Wit and Blunders 286 

Scientific Lecture before the Anthropological Section of the 
American Association for the Advancement of Science, 
Columbia College, as reported in the World. 

From College to Cowboy 292 

Funny Introductions — The College Senior Rattled — Lectur- 
ing on Gettysburg Battlefield — With the Cheyenne Cow- 
boys — Dead Shot Bill — A Joke or Your Life — Poker in 
the Cheyenne Sabbath School — Back to Sweet Berea — 
Lecturing a Princeton Foot-ball Team — Doubtful Compli- 
ment at Portsmouth — Why I Write Books. 



ACKNOWLEDGMENTS AND THANKS. 



DURING the last thirty years, while preparing this 
volume, the author has listened to thousands of anec- 
dotes, reminiscences, and funny experiences from the 
lips of the following witty, wise, and eloquent thinkers, 
now dead : 

Charles Sumner, Abraham Lincoln, Generals Grant, 
Sherman, Sheridan, Kilpatrick, and Admiral Farragut ; 
Beecher, Conkling, Garfield, Geo. Bancroft, John B. 
Gough, Wendell Phillips, Wm. R. Travers, August Bel- 
mont, Prof. Proctor, Ben. Wade, Robt. Toombs, Thad. 
Stevens, Art emus Ward, Nasby, Josh Billings, Ben : 
Perley Poore, John G. Saxe. 

The following living thinkers will recognize many 
stories and anecdotes which they have told to me, and 
will receive my thanks : 

Dr. Colyer, Talmage, Lyman Abbott, Dwight L. 
Moody, Bishop H. C. Potter, Sam Jones, Prof. Swing, 
ex-Gov. A. G. Curtin, Gen. Butler, R. G. Ingersoll, 
Chauncey M. Depew, Wm. M. Evarts, General Alger, 
Dr. Hammond, Horace Porter, Chief Justice Fuller, 
Daniel Dougherty, Dan'l Voorhies, ex-Gov. Foraker, 
G. W. Curtis, Proctor Knott, Fitz Hugh Lee, General 
Howard, John Wanamaker, Jay Gould, Roswell G. 
Horr, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Will Carleton, Eugene 
Field, Mark Twain, J. W. Riley, Bret Harte, Alex. 



X ACKNOWLEDGMENTS AND THANKS. 

Sweet, John Habberton, Geo. W. Cable, and George 
Thatcher. 

I have also used the best wit transcribed by others 
from the lips of Tom Corwin, Randolph, Seba Smith, 
Tom Hood, Chas. Lamb, Dickens, Thackeray, Talley- 
rand, Cervantes, Dean Swift, Juvenal, Aristippus, and 
Diogenes. 

The author desires to acknowledge the inspiration 
and aid he has received from the pens of the following 
makers of American wit and humor: 

"Josh Billings" — Henry W. Shaw. 

" Andrew Jack Downing " — Seba R. Smith. 

" Artemus Ward " — Chades Farrar Browne. 

" Bill Arp "—Charles H. Smith. 

" Gath " — George Alfred Townsend. 

" Fat Contributor " — A. Miner Griswold. 

" Hawkeye Man " — Robert J. Burdette. 

" Howadjii " — George William Curtis. 

" Ik Marvel "—Donald Grant Mitchell. 

"John Paul"— Charles H. Webb. 

"John Phoenix" — Capt. George H. Derby. 

" Mark Twain " — Samuel L. Clemens. 

" Max Adler "—Charles H. Clark. 

" Petroleum V. Nasby " — David Ross Locke. 

" Bill Nye "—Edgar W. Nye. 

" Danbury News Man " — Jas. M. Bailey. 

" Old Si "—Samuel W. Small. 

" Orpheus C. Kerr " — Robert H. Newell. 

" Miles O'Reilly "—Charles G. Halpin. 

" Peter Parley " — H. C. Goodrich. 

" Ned Buntline " — Col. Judson. 

" Brick Pomeroy " — M. M. Pomeroy. 

" Josiah Allen's Wife " — Marietta Holley. 

" Doesticks " — Mortimer M. Thompson. 

" Mrs. Partington " — Benj. P. Shillaber. 

" Spoopendyke " — Stanley Huntley. 



ACKNOWLEDGMENTS AND THANKS. xi 

" Uncle Remus " — Joel Chandler Harris. 

" Hosea Bigelow " — James Russell Lowell. 

" Fanny Fern " — Sara Payson Willis. 

" Grand Father Lickshingle " — Robert W. Criswell. 

" M. Quad " — Charles B. Lewis. 

The object of the book is to give the people the best 
anecdotes, the best wit and humor, and the brightest 
sayings of the nineteenth century, and to transmit them 
to posterity. 

Melville D. Landon, 
"Eli Perkins." 
208 West End Avenue, New York. 



ELI PERKINS-THIRTY YEARS 
OF WIT. 



REMINISCENCES OF NOTED MEN. 



Charles Sumner on Leibnitz and Kepler — Talks with Josh Billings, Sam 
Jones, Mark Twain, Danbury News Man, and Bill Arp. 

MY first intention was to write an autobiography, for I 
have had an eventful life. But biography is always 
dry, while reminiscences, jokes, and anecdotes are al- 
ways charming. So I toss aside the autobiography and 
commence with the more humorous and entertaining 
auto-reminiscences and quaint laugh-provoking inci- 
dents which I have witnessed. 

If the reader really wants to know the history of 
the writer he will find it condensed below in a foot 
note, as given in Spofford's "Library of American 
Writers."* 

* A. R. Spofford, Librarian of Congress, in his " Library of 
American Writers," gives this biography of Mr. Landon : 

Melville D. Landon (Eli Perkins), was born in Eaton, N. Y., in 
1840, passed the Sophomore year at Madison University, and 
graduated at Union College in 1861. 

The next week after graduating Secretary Chase gave him an 
appointment in the U. S. Treasury. After Sumpter was fired upon 
Mr. Landon assisted in organizing and served in the Clay Battalion. 
Resigning from the Treasury he went on to General A. L. Chetlain's 



2 ELI PERKINS— THIRTY YEARS OF WIT. 

I can hardly recall the name of a distinguished man 
in America that I have not met. I remember of talk- 
ing with Wm. H. Seward in 1861, while he swung in a 
hammock in the back yard of his Lafayette Square 
house — the very house where Sickles killed Philip Bar- 
ton Key and which is now occupied by Secretary Blaine. 
Senator Sumner lived then just across on the corner, 
and he was always delighted to talk with college boys. 
I remember how Sumner had three hobbies, and they 
were a cosmopolite decimal currency, cosmopolite 
decimal weights and measures, and a cosmopolite lan- 
guage — that is, a common language for all diplomats. 
Then he used to tell us a story about how Leibnitz 
went to the great philosopher Kepler to show him a 
cosmopolite sign language. 

staff in Memphis. In 1864 he resigned from the army and engaged 
in cotton planting in Arkansas and Louisiana ; the last year culti- 
vating 1700 acres. 

In 1867 Mr. Landon went abroad, traveling over Europe into 
Russia and down the Volga into Kazan. While in Russia he was 
chosen by General Cassius M. Clay, then Minister to Russia, as Sec- 
retary of Legation to St. Petersburg. 

On returning to America, in 1870, his first public writing was a 
history of the Franco-Prussian war, published by G. W. Carleton, 
following it with numerous humorous writings for the public press 
under the nom de plume of " Eli Perkins." His humorous writings 
in the Commercial Advertiser in 1872 made his fame world-wide. 
Under the name of " Eli Perkins " he has published several books, 
among them "Saratoga in 1901," Sheldon & Co.; "Wit, Humor, 
and Pathos," Belford Clark Co.; "Wit and Humor of the Age," 
Western Publishing House, Chicago, and " Kings of Platform and 
Pulpit," Belford Clark Co., Chicago. The grandfather of the hu- 
morist was Rufus Landon, a revolutionary soldier from Litchfield 
County, Connecticut, where his father, John Landon, was born 
Mr. Landon resides af 208 West End Avenue, New York. 



REMINISCENCES OF NOTED MEN. 3 

"Leibnitz arrived at Kepler's house," said Sumner, 
"and asked him to send him some smart, shrewd old 
philosopher, and with him he would illustrate his new 
cosmopolite language. When the old philosopher (who 
was old Jim the fisherman) came, Leibnitz told Kepler 
that he would hold a philosophical discussion with him 
in his new language of signs. 

"When old Jim came, Leibnitz held up one finger, to 
denote one God. 

"Then old Jim held up two fingers, while Leibnitz 
rubbed his hands in great glee, saying, 'See! he under- 
stood me. He means there is a plurality of gods. Mag- 
nifiqiie /' 

"Leibnitz now held up three fingers to denote the 
Trinity; and old Jim put up his fist with his fingers 
all together, while Leibnitz said, 'He means the three 
in one — Father, Son and Holy Ghost. Beautiful!' 

"Leibnitz now handed old Jim an apple, to denote 
the 'fallen state of man,' and old Jim, much to Leib- 
nitz's surprise, held up a broken cracker. 

' 'Splendid,' said Leibnitz, looking triumphantly at 
Kepler. 'Why, when I hand him the apple to de- 
note the "fallen state of man," he hands me a cracker 
to denote the "Bread of Life." Wonderful!' 

"The next day," said Sumner, "Kepler called old Jim 
to him and asked him how he came to understand 
Leibnitz so well. 

'Why, the man's a fool,' exclaimed old Jim. 'He's 
crazy and he insulted me!' 

'What did he say to you,' asked Kepler. 
( 'He held up one finger to denote that I had but 
one eye ; and I held up two fingers to denote that my 
one eye was better than his two.' 



4 ELI PERKINS— THIRTY YEARS OF WIT. 

" 'What then, Jim?' 

" 'He held up three fingers to indicate that with 
my wooden leg I'd had three legs, and then I doubled 
up my fist and said I'll have no more of that.' 

" 'And then?' 

'Why, the crazy rascal took out an apple to de- 
note that I ground nothing but apples in my mill ; but 
I showed him a cracker to prove to him that I ground 
the best flour in England.' " 



What a transformation from Sumner and Leibnitz to 
Josh Billings — but I love an antithesis. 

Josh Billings — what a wonderful character! 

I can see the old man now, with his long hair and tall, 
lank form leaning around on the book counters at 
Carleton's. G. W. Carleton's, under the Fifth Avenue 
Hotel, was the rendezvous of all the humorists. There 
you would meet Bill Arp, and Burdette, and Nasby, 
and Artemus Ward, for Carleton published all of their 
books. Carleton is a humorist himself, and his illus- 
trated book on Cuba has proved his inspiration. 

One day I was talking with Uncle Josh at Carleton's. 
During the conversation a beautiful young lady came 
in with a bundle of manuscript, and stepping up to the 
publisher hesitated a moment, and then said: 

"Mr. Carleton?" 

"Yes, madame, what can I do for you?" 

"I want to get you to print a book for me." 

"You mean publish your book, don't you?" asked 
Mr. Carleton. 

"Well, now, what is the difference between printing 
and publishing a book?" asked the young lady, 



REMINISCENCES OF NOTED MEN. 5 

opening her eyes bewilderingly, as young ladies 
often do. 

"Why, the difference between publishing and print- 
ing," said Mr. Carleton, "is simply this: If I should 
print a kiss on a beautiful young lady's cheek it would 
simply be private printing; but if I should go out and 
tell the whole world about it, that would be publish- 
ing^ and the meanest kind of publishing, too." 

"I should think so," said the young lady. 

Carleton is now in Japan, and having no fear of him, 
I publish, for the first time, one of his poems, which he 
used to read to us with a very sad and mournful voice. 

Tis only an infant pippin, 

Growing on a limb ; 
'Tis only a typical small boy, 

Who devours it with a vim. 

'Tis only a doctor's carriage, 

Standing before the door; 
But why go into details — 

The service begins at four. 

While in Saratoga, a year before Josh Billings died, we 
went up to my room and spent an entire afternoon on 
an interview. The interview was a mutual production, 
and was not to be published till he died. I now give it 
to the public. 

"Mr. Billings," I commenced, "where were you edu- 
cated?" 

"Pordunk, Pennsylvania." 

"How old are you?" 

"I was born 150 years old — and have been growing 
young ever since." 

"Are you married?" 



o ELI PERKINS— THIRTY 'YEARS OE WIT. 

"Once." 

"How many children have you?" 

"Doublets." 

"What other vices have you?" 

< < AT »» 

JNone. 

"Have you any virtues?" 

"Several." 

"What are they?" 

"I left them up at Poughkeepsie." 

"Do you gamble?" 

"When I feel good." 

"What is your profession?" 

"Agriculture and alminaxing." 

"How do you account for your deficient knowledge 
in spelling?" 

"Bad spells during infancy, and poor memory." 

"What things are you the most liable to forget?" 

"Sermons and debts." 

"What professions do you like best?" 

"Auctioneering, base-ball, and theology." 

"Do you smoke?" 

"Thank you, I'll take a Partaga first." 

"What is your worst habit?" 

"The coat I got last in Poughkeepsie." 

"What are your favorite books?" 

"My alminack and Ommodore Vanderbilt's pocket- 
book." 

"What is your favorite piece of sculpture?" 

"The mile stone nearest home." 

"What is your favorite animal?" 

"The mule." 

"Why?" 

"Because he never blunders with his heels." 



REMIXISCEXCES OF XOTED MEN. 7 

"What was the best thing said by our old friend 
Artemus Ward?" 

"All the pretty girls in Utah marry Young." 

"Do you believe in the final salvation of all men?" 

"I do — let me pick the men !" 

In the evening Josh and I reviewed the interview, 
and pronounced it faithfully rendered, and then he gave 
me the following specimen of his handwriting: 

tlAojrt Iz. 2. ypLiAxps in Tjfcs "mrr^cC 
(fur yrkick yy^ curt ryuvvr fa/fy 

dZss so, diss j*, fefc /BlWmpz 

dflafe iz tndy md^yTbcfi £a*t 

&£ 3ed Cv\ frawcnjvr cnr t£& /booth* 
— TfuymaAi a-?y\anforfiffcL6C . 




8 ELI PERKINS— THIRTY YEARS OF WIT. 

The nicest rebels I ever met were "Bill Arp," the 
Southern humorist, Sam Jones, and Fitz Hugh Lee. 
"Bill Arp," whose real name is Chas. H. Smith, of Car- 
tersville, Ga., was just as good a rebel as Alex. H 
Stevens, or Robert Toombs, or John B. Floyd; but 
when I found him on his Cartersville farm, he was fully 
reconstructed. 

Speaking of Bill Arp's age to the Rev. Sam Jones, 
his neighbor, he said : 

"Why, Bill's sixty years old. He's got nine children 
of his own, and if he a'nt the father of American hu- 
morists it isn't his fault." 

"Is Bill really reconstructed?" I asked Mr. Jones. 

"Yes, Bill has been born again. He repented, but 
Floyd and Toombs were never reconstructed. They 
died with their Confederate war paint on, and with 
their coffins wrapped in the old red and white flag of 
the Confederacy. 

"Robert Toombs and John B. Floyd," said Sam, 
"were both members of Jeff Davis's cabinet. Once 
they were talking of where they would like to be buried. 
It was after the war, and, notwithstanding defeat, each 
loved Jeff Davis and the Confederacy. They had been 
reading letters from R. Barnwell Rhett, John Slidell, 
and Henry A. Wise, brother cabinet officers. 

" 'When I die/ said Floyd, very seriously, T wish I 
could be buried right under that Confederate monu- 
ment in Richmond.' 

" 'What for?' asked Toombs. 

" 'Because I want my last sweet rest to be where a 
Yankee will never come.' 

' T would be buried there, too,' said Toombs, 'but 
I hate the devil worse than I hate a Yankee, and 



REMINISCENCES OF NOTED MEN. 9 

I almost wish I could be buried in the colored 
cemetery.' 

4 'Wha— what for?' asked Floyd, deeply surprised. 

' 'Because,' said Toombs, ' the devil will never 
trouble me there. He'd never think of looking for an 
old rebel Democrat in a colored graveyard !' ' 

When I asked Bill Arp one day if he really killed 
many Yankees, he said : 

''Well, I don't want to boast about myself, but I killed 
as many of them as they did of me." 

Speaking of pensions one day, Mr. Arp said : 

"Every Yankee soldier ought to have a pension." 

"But they were not all injured in the army, were 
they?" I asked. 

"Yes, they all did so much hard lying about us poor 
rebels that they strained their consciences." 

Fitz Hugh Lee told me a good story about " Bill Arp." 

"In the summer of 1863," said Fitz Hugh, "Bill 
Arp — we called him Major Smith then — was in theRich- 
mond Hospital. The hospital was crowded with sick 
and dying soldiers and the Richmond ladies visited 
it daily, carrying with them delicacies of every kind, 
and did all they could to cheer and comfort the suffer- 
ing. On one occasion a pretty miss of sixteen was 
distributing flowers and speaking gentle words of en- 
couragement to those around her, when she overheard 
a soldier exclaim : 'Oh, my Lord !' 

"It was Bill Arp. 

"Stepping to his bedside to rebuke him for his profan- 
ity, she remarked: 'Didn't I hear you call upon the 
name of the Lord ? I am one of his daughters. Is there 
anything I can ask him for you?' 

"Looking up into her bright, sweet face, Bill replied ; 



io ELI PERKINS— THIRTY YEARS OF WIT. 

'I don't know but you could do something for me if I 
wasn't married.' 

" 'Well,' said she, 'what is it?' 

"Raising his eyes to hers and extending his hand, 
he said, 'As you are a daughter of the Lord, if I wasn't 
married, I'd get you to ask him if he wouldn't make me 
his son-in-law.' " 

A friend of mine, a writer on the New York Sun, 
told me how Bill Arp happened to surrender. "You 
know," he said, "Major Munson had charge of the 
Dalton district, in Georgia, when the humorist sur- 
rendered. It was a hard thing for him to do it, and it 
took him a week or two to come down to it, but he fin- 
ally laid down his sword. 

" 'Most of the "Confeds" came in very quietly,' said 
the major, 'and seemed glad to have the thing settled, 
but once in a while I struck a man who hated to come 
under. One day a big, handsome man, with tangled 
hair, and with Virginia red mud on his boots, came in 
to talk about surrendering. It was Bill Arp. 

" ' " Doggone it, sir," he began, in the Georgia dialect, 
"I have come in, sir, to see what terms can be secured 
in case I surrender." 

" ' "Haven't you surrendered yet?" I inquired. 

"'"No, sir! Not by a doggone sight! I said I'd 
die in the last ditch, and I've kept my word." 

" ' "Whose company did you belong to?" 

' ' Belong ! Belong ! Thunderation ! I didn't belong 
to any one's company ! Why, sir, I fought on my own 
hook." 

" ' "Where was it?" 

" ' "No matter, sir; no matter. What are your best 
terms? Out with it !" 



REMINISCENCES OF- NOTED MEN. I J 

"Unconditional surrender," I said. 
"'"Terms don't suit," said Bill. "Unconditional? 
No, sir; I'll surrender to Spain or Mexico. You can't 
crush me. I can be insulted, but not crushed. Good- 
day, sir. I'll see the United States weep tears of blood 
before I'll surrender. Haven't a card, but my name is 
Arp— Colonel Bill Arp." 

1 'He went off, but in about a week he returned and 
began : 

"As the impression seems to be general that the 
Southern Confederacy has been crushed, I called to see 
what terms would be granted me in case I concluded 
to lay down my sword." 

"Unconditional surrender," I briefly replied. 

"Then, doggone it, sir, I'll never lay it down while 
life is left. The cause is lost, but principle remains. 
You can inform General Sheridan that Bill Arp refuses 
to surrender." 

1 'Colonel Arp returned two weeks later. He seemed 
to have had a hard time of it, as his uniform was in rags 
and his pockets empty. 

Look a-here, Captain," he said, as he came in, " I 
don't want to prolong this bloody strife, but am fo'ced 
to do so by honor. If accorded reasonable terms, I 
might surrender. What do you say?" 
" ' "The same as before." 

"Then you are determined to grind us to powder, 
eh ? Sooner than submit, I'll shed the rest of my blood ! 
Send on your armies, Captain. I am ready for 'em!" 

' 'Just a week from that day, Colonel Arp came in 
again, said he'd like to surrender, drew his rations with 
the rest, and went off in great good-humor to his Car- 
tersville farm.' " 



12 ELI PERKINS-THIRTY YEARS OF WIT. 

Mark Twain can tell a humorous story as if it were 
a funeral dirge. I met him once with a party. Each 
had told a sea story and Mark was asked to tell one 
too. 

"A true story?" asked the humorist. 

"Why, of course." 

"Well, gentlemen," he commenced, with that won- 
derful drawl, "I was once crossing the Atlantic on 
one of the stanchest ships of the Anchor line. We 
had ridden for days in an utter calm. One day, when 
we were all fanning ourselves, telling anecdotes, and 
narrating religious experiences, a terrible storm broke 
over the vessel. Billows mountains high dashed over 
us, the rudder was torn off, the masts fell, the waters 
roared in torrents through the scuppers, and then all 
of a sudden the ship settled, lunged forward on her beam 
ends, and sank out of sight in sixty fathoms of water, 
every soul on board going down with her." 

After the wonder had somewhat subsided, Joaquin 
Miller, the poet, came up to the humorist and said: 

"You did not tell us how you escaped, Mr. Twain." 

"I didn't escape!" exclaimed Mark, "I was drowned 
with the rest." 

Mr. David Welcher tells me that Mark Twain, when 
in a good humor, told him the story of his courtship, 
and how he won his beautiful and wealthy wife. She 
was a Miss Langdon of Elmira. When Mark first met 
her, he was not so distinguished as now ; his origin was 
humble, and for some years of his life he had been 
a pilot on the Mississippi River. The future Mrs. 
Clemens was a woman of position and fortune; her 
father was a judge, and doubtless expected "family" 
and social importance in his son-in-law. Clemens* how- 



REMINISCENCES OF NOTED MEN. 13 

ever, became interested in his daughter, and after a 
while proposed, but was rejected. 

"Well," he said to the lady, "I didn't much believe 
you'd have me, but I thought I'd try." 

After a while he "tried" again, with the same result; 
and then remarked, with his celebrated drawl, "I think 
a great deal more of you than if you'd said 'Yes,' but 
it's hard to bear." A third time he met with better 
fortune, and then came to the most difficult part of 
his task — to address the old gentleman. 

"Judge," he said to the dignified millionaire, "have 
you seen anything going on between Miss Lizzie and 
me?" 

"What? What?" exclaimed the judge, rather 
sharply, apparently not understanding the situation, 
yet doubtless getting a glimpse of it from the 
inquiry. 

"Have you seen anything going on between Miss 
Lizzie and me?" 

"No, indeed," replied the magnate sternly. "No, 
sir, I have not." 

"Well, look sharp and you will," said the author of 
"Innocents Abroad"; and that's the way he asked the 
judicial luminary for his daughter's hand. 

And Mark, to this day, has never ceased to con- 
gratulate himself on the shrewd and business-like man- 
ner that he conducted his case, and, like a clever diplo- 
mat won a wise judge and a lovely wife at the same 
time. 



What of Sam Jones? 

Sam Jones lives in Cartersville, Ga., and is a neighbor 
of Bill Arp. Mr. Jones told me that he was once a 



14 ELI PERKINS-THIRTY YEARS OF WIT. 

lawyer, but he says he afterward repented and became 
a Methodist clergyman. 

One day I asked Mr. Jones why he was a prohibi- 
tionist. 

" Because," he said, "to be a Christian you must be a 
prohibitionist. I don't mean a third party man ; but 
you must be a man that is against everything that 
favors whisky, and in favor of everything that is 
against it. 

"The fact is," continued Sam, "this whisky question 
has got to be settled. There was lots of blood spilled 
in this country to make free men out of 4,000,000 
slaves, and I don't see anything wrong in a little more 
blood being spilled to save the women and children 
from the misery and sufferings that result from this 
damnable traffic. I don't care when the fight comes. 
I am willing to get at the head of the procession with 
my rifle." 

Mr. Jones makes a great deal of money out of his 
lectures, but not so much out of his preaching; still 
he has very little love for money. 

"Are you saving your money?" I asked the revivalist 
one day on the train. 

"Saving my money!" he exclaimed, "what for? 
Why, a man who saves money is a miser. Christ 
didn't have a bank account. Josh Billings says the 
old miser that has accumulated his millions and then 
sits down with his millions at last, without any capacity 
for enjoying it, reminds him of a fly that has fallen 
into a half-barrel of molasses. There you've got the 
picture just as complete as Josh Billings ever drew a 
picture. 

"No, sir," continued Sam, "I never had much 



REMINISCENCES OF NOTED MEN. *5 

money — never will, I reckon. I saw in the papers some 
time ago where a man had died in North Carolina and 
left Sam Jones a wonderful legacy — and all that sort 
of thing. I was at home at the time. Several of my 
friends ran up with the paper, and said : 

" 'Sam, did you see this?' 

" 'Yes.' 

' 'What are you going to do about it?' 

" 'I ain't going to do anything.' 

' 'Well, I'd write on and tell them where you are.' 

; ' 'No sir,' said I, 'I am getting on right well without 
a legacy, and God knows what I'd do if I had one. I 
am getting on so well without one that I don't want to 
fool with one. 

'"Don't you see? I want you all to have legacies 
and live in fine houses, and I will go around and take 
dinner with you, and let you pay the taxes and 
servants, and I will enjoy the thing. Don't you see? 
That is a good idea, ain't it?' 

"If I get wealth without religion," continued Sam 
thoughtfully, "why, I'll be poor in the next world. 
Cornelius Vanderbilt was the richest man that ever 
bade America good-by, and stepped into eternity. He 
turned to his oldest boy and passed $75,000,000 into 
his hands; $25,000,000 additional he turned over to 
the rest of his heirs, and then, in his last moments, 
turned to his Christian wife and asked her: 'Wife, 
please sing 

Come, ye sinners, poor and needy ; 
Weak and wounded, sick and sore.' 

"The richest man that America ever produced ask- 
ing his wife to sing the song of a beggar!" 



1 6 ELI PERKINS-THIRTY YEARS OF WIT. 

I do not think there is a man living who can use as 
strong English as Sam Jones, or, rather, as strong 
Saxon. The great but pedantic Dr. Johnson once 
said, speaking of one of Addison's essays: "There is 
not virtue enough in it to preserve it from putrefac- 
tion." Sam Jones would have said in his bold Saxon: 
"There ain't wit enough in it to keep it sweet." One 
day, when the reporters had been criticising the revi- 
valist's Saxon language, he became indignant, and said : 

"Do you want my opinion of these reporters who 
abuse our meetings?" 

"Yes." 

"Well, in my humble opinion, I will be in heaven 
when these miserable little reporters who malign me 
are sitting on one ear in hell, trying to keep cool by 
fanning themselves with the other." 

"Do they ever answer back to you from the audience 
when you talk so savagely?" I asked. 

"Yes, often. Every now and then a burnt sinner 
will squeal. Sometimes they get a good joke on me, 
too. One day, in St. Louis," continued the preacher, 
laughing, "an awful funny thing happened. I had 
been attacking the gamblers and drunkards for an 
hour, and I said a drunkard is lower than a dog. 

"Just then a shabby, blear-eyed man arose trem- 
blingly, and started to leave the church. 

" 'Stop ! young man,' I said. ' Stop !' 

"The young man stood still, with a thousand eyes 
on him. 

" 'If you'd rather go to hell than hear me preach 
just go on !' 

" 'Well,' replied the man, after a pause, T believe I'd 
rather. And out he went. 



REMINISCENCES OF NOTED MEN. 17 

"Ha! ha! ha!" chuckled Sam, "it was a good one, 
wasn't it? 

"The very next night," continued the preacher, "I 
saw the same man in the audience. By and bye I saw 
him standing up. 

''Well/ said I kindly, 'what do you want, my 
man ?' 

' ' I want to know, Elder, if you think you can get 
the devil out of me?' 

' 4 0h, yes,' I said, 'but I don't think it would im- 
prove you any. The little left would be worse than 
the devil.' " 

"I suppose you learn a good deal from your 
audiences?" I suggested. 

"Oh, yes. A good old Christian lady rose one night 
and said she had got repentance. 

' 'Do you know what true repentance is, mother?' I 
asked. 

1 'Yes. It is being sorry for your meanness and feel- 
ing that you ain't going to do it any more.' 

' 'That's the best definition of repentance I ever 
heard in my life, mother,' I said. 'That is repentance. 
Good Lord, I am so sorry for my meanness that I 
don't intend to do it any more. And now, mother,' 
said I, 'do you know what true religion is?' 

"'Yes.' 

" 'What?' 

'"It's this,' said the old lady: 'If the Lord will 
just forgive me for it, I won't want to do it any 
more.' 

' 'Right, mother!' said I. 'There is repentance and 
religion in a nutshell, so every man in the world can 
get hold of it.' " 



1 8 ELI PERKINS— THIRTY YEARS OF WIT. 

The Danbury News Man — have I met him? 

Yes, and have letters from him. In fact, I published 
his lecture, " England from a Back Window," in my 
"Kings of Platform and Pulpit." 

Mr. Bailey — James Montgomery Bailey is his full 
name — told me that he was born in Albany, N. Y., in 
1 841 ; he fought through the war in a Connecticut 
regiment, and afterward made himself famous writing 
for the Danbury News, 

Mr. Bailey's wit has a delicious mental flavor. In 
fact, it is always the shrewd, thoughtful man who en- 
joys it. It is not in long, inane dialogues, but a flash 
of thought. The humorist says a poor man came to 
him with tears in his eyes one day, asking for help for 
his destitute and starving children. 

"What do you need most?" asked Mr. Bailey. 

"Well, we need bread, but if I can't have that I'll 
take tobacco." 

One day a solemn and religious Danbury man hailed 
a charcoal peddler with the query: 

"Have you got charcoal in your wagon?" 

"Yes, sir," said the expectant driver, stopping his 
horses. 

"That's right," observed the religious man, with an 
approving nod, "always tell the truth and people will 
respect you." 

And then he closed the door just in time to escape 
a brick hurled by the wicked peddler. 

"Speaking of lazy men," said Mr. Bailey, "we have a 
man in Danbury so lazy that instead of shoveling a 
path to the front gate he pinches the baby's ear with 
the nippers till the neighbors come rushing in to tread 
down the snow." 



REMINISCENCES OF NOTED MEN. 19 

A Danbury man was bargaining for a house of old 
McMasters, and asked him if the house was cold. 

"Cold," said the old man cautiously, "I can't say as 
to that; it stands out doors." 

Speaking of the Indian raids, says Bailey: "The 
Modocs have made another raid on our people, and 
murdered them. If ever our government gets hold of 
these savages, gets them right where they cannot 
escape, gets them wholly into its clutches — some con- 
tractor will make money." 

Mr. Bailey's humor also consists in truthful descrip- 
tions of domestic life. His descriptions are so true 
that they are absolutely photographed on the mind of 
the reader. One can close his eyes and see with his 
mind's eye the very scenes depicted. 



GENERAL SHERMAN'S ANECDOTES 
AND JOKES. 



Sherman on John Phoenix, Wm. R. Travers, General Scott, General 
Kilpatrick, Admiral Farragut, and General Howard — His Joke on 
the Ghost Dancers, Garfield, the Irish Soldier, and Tennessee 
Women. 

WHILE preparing my book "Kings of Platform 
and Pulpit," I had a good many pleasant talks 
with General Sherman. Our houses were near each 
other (the general living at 75 West Seventy-first Street, 
and my house being 208 West End Avenue). Then 
again I was on General A. L. Chetlain's staff in 
Memphis, when the general was making his march to 
the sea. I had met General Sherman often in war 
time and knew many of our Western generals ; knew all 
about the social and political status of Tennessee, 
Georgia, and South Carolina, and General Sherman 
was glad to talk over his old war reminiscences and 
jokes with any one who could appreciate his stories. 

General Sherman was the brightest man I ever met. 
He was always gleeful. He had been with Lieutenant 
George H. Derby (John Phoenix) in San Diego away 
back in the forties, and really brought the genius of 
the San Diego humorist to the knowledge. 'of the 
public. That was the commencement of American 
humor. Afterward came Jack Downing, Lowell's 
Bigelow Papers, Ward, Billings, Twain, Nye, and the 
rest. 



GENERAL SHERMAN'S AXECDOTES. 21 

One day, after the general had told several good 
stories, I begged him to let me publish them in the 
book which I was then writing. 

"No, no!" he said. "I want to keep them for my 
private friends. You know I dine out about as much 
as Depew, and they always expect a new story." 

As soon as my book was out, containing a few of 
the general's stories, with the hundreds of others, he 
sent me this letter — about the last rolicksome letter he 
ever wrote : 




4 



&L Ay ^ ^. ^^, /£^<r ^frt^, , 




Z^O 



/Cia 



2 2 ELI PERKINS— THIRTY YEARS OF WIT. 




^^-— ^^ c^U^ ty /_^L £*^^ 








GENERAL SHERMAN'S ANECDOTES. 23 








As George Alfred Townsend said of Miles O'Riley, 
"there was a splendid boyishness" about Sherman. 
He was always ready with a pun, a sparkling bit of 
repartee, or a strong thought — a very David with the 
sword and tongue. 

"One of my happiest hits," said the general, a week 
before death called him away, "was the way I man- 
aged those Charleston rebels when they asked me if 
they couldn't put Jeff Davis's name in the prayer-book, 
and pray for the Confederate President in their 
churches. 

'Want to pray for Jeff Davis, do you?' I asked. 

" 'Yes; we can't pray for Lincoln.' 
'Well,' said I, 'just you go and pray for old Jeff- 
He needs it /' " 

"Did they continue to pray for Jeff?" I asked. 

"Oh, I don't know; but if they did their prayers 
weren't answered. Perhaps they were offset by the 
prayers of the negroes. The negroes were always 
loyal. Until the army arrived they had never heard 



24 ELI PERKINS— THIRTY YEARS OF WIT. 

us called by any other name than Yankees, and the 
rebels always added the expletive 'damn' to us. That 
is, they always called us 'Damn Yankees.' One night 
one of my staff officers heard the negroes praying, and 
one old negro ended up his prayer with a hearty : 

" '0 Lord, bress de damn Yankees — guide them to 
us !' 

"Another negro," continued the general, "prayed 
like this : 

" 'O Lord, we bress you for senden' us Gin'ral Sher- 
man. He's one of us, O Lord. He may have a white 
skin, but he's got a black heart.' 

"If the rebels prayed for us," said the general, 
"they prayed for us as Mr. Travers once bet on John 
Morrissey's horse. Mr. Morrissey believed in the 
theory 'like-me, like-my-dog,' and believed every one 
of his friends was in duty bound to bet on his horse 
at the Saratoga races. One day he asked Travers to 
bet on his horse, and the stammering banker promised 
to do it. The next day Morrissey's horse lost the race, 
and the man who had whipped Heenan came up to 
Travers all humiliation. 

' 'I'm sorry, Mr. Travers,' he said, 'that you lost on 
my horse — very sorry.' 

" 'W-w-why, I d-d-didn't lose,' said Travers. 

" 'Then you didn't bet on him, after all,' said 
Morrissey, with an injured look. 

" 'Y-y-yes, I b-bet on him, b-b-but — I bet he'd lo-lo- 
lose!' " 

A month before the general died we had the ghost 
dance war in the West. The Indians were having their 
ghostly dances in Dakota, and the report had come in 



GENERAL SHERMAN'S ANECDOTES. 25 

that General Miles's men had killed Sitting Bull near 
the Pine Ridge Agency. 

"Been killing more Indians out West again, General," 
I remarked, handing him a newspaper. 

"Yes, the newspapers kill a good many Injuns. 
They kill more than the troops do. Why, if we killed 
half as many Injuns as the newspapers do, we'd be 
short of Injuns!" 

"Is it right to kill these Indians?" I asked. 

"Dancing Injuns, ain't they? Ghost dancers?" 

"Yes." 

"Well now, Eli," said the general, with mock gravity, 
"hasn't Sam Jones, and Moody, and the entire Metho- 
dist Church been trying to break up dancing for years? 
Of course they haven't succeeded. Now I'm glad 
that the strong arm of the government has at last 
united with the Church and taken hold of this dancing 
question. I hope General Miles will kill or convert 
every dancer west of the Mississippi, and then I hope 
the Secretary of War will call on General Howard to 
arrest the dancers, white or Injun, in the east — in New 
York and Philadelphia. I tell you, Eli, dancing and 
chicken stealing must be stopped in this country." 

When we consider that the only thing Sitting Bull 
and the Sioux Indians had done to bring on the last 
war was to dance, and that all the army did was to 
stop that dancing, we can appreciate the satire of the 
general. 

"That was a terrible satire on the army that the news- 
paper paragraphs put into Sitting Bull's mouth the 
day before they killed him," continued the general. 

"What was it, General?" I asked, much amused, for 



26 ELI PERKINS— THIRTY YEARS OF WIT. 

I wrote the satire myself and had used it a thousand 
times. 

"Well, the wicked paragrapher said that when Sitting 
Bull was under arrest they asked him if he had any 
great grievance? 

"The old soldier killer, who was in the Custer mas- 
sacre, was silent. But by and bye he clutched his toma- 
hawk and said: 'Indian very sensitive. Indian no like 
being lied about. If Indian ever get back to the white 
man again, he'll scalp the white-livered son of a gun 
who's been telling around that Sitting Bull graduated 
at West Point: " 

The fun-loving general was apparently as serious 
about dancing as he was about chicken stealing in the 
army, as illustrated in the following story : 

"While at Bowling Green," said General Veatch, who 
commanded at Memphis previous to General Chetlain, 
" the rebel women bothered us to death. It was always 
the same old complaint — ' the soldiers have milked our 
cows, or stolen our chickens, or "busted" into the 
smoke house.' Always the same story through Tennes- 
see and Georgia. At Chattanooga the rebel women 
seemed to bore Sherman to death. 

"One morning a tall, hatchet-faced woman, in a faded 
butternut sunbonnet, besieged the general's head- 
quarters. 

' 'Well, my good lady, what can I do for you?' in- 
quired the general, as she hesitated at his tent 
entrance. 

" 'My chickens, Gen ' 

" 'Sh — , Madame!' broke in the general. T have 
made up my mind, solemnly and earnestly, that the 
integrity of the Constitution and the unity of this re- 



GENERAL SHERMAN'S ANECDOTES. 27 

public shall be maintained, if it takes every — every 
chicken in Tennessee ! ' " 

General Sherman was marching with his army 
through the mountain gaps of East Tennessee. The 
people there are generous, but very ignorant and nat- 
ural. "It was the center of civilization — for clay eaters 
and bad roads," said the general. "That day," con- 
tinued the general, "we were marching through 
Claiburn County, at the foot of the Cumberland 
Mountains, when I met a dear good old lady with a 
snuff stick in her mouth. 

1 'Which way is the county seat?' I asked. 

' T didn't know,' she said, with a look of wonder- 
ment, 'that the county had any seat.' 

' 'What is the population of your county?' 

' T dunno,' said the old lady, chewing her snuff 
stick, T rekon it's up in Kentucky.' 

' T suppose there are some illicit distilleries up in 
these mountains?' continued the general, pointing to- 
ward the Cumberland. 

' T rekon so,' said the old lady, nodding. 

' 'That is bad for the people — very bad.' 

' 'What, whisky bad?' said the old lady, her eyes 
opening with amazement ; 'why, whisky is the best 
drink in the world. That's what saved Bill Fellers's life.' 

' 'But Bill Fellers is dead — died five years ago,' inter- 
rupted a bystander. 

' 'That's what killed him — didn't drink any whisky. 
Poor Bill, he never knowed what killed him. How he 
must have suffered !' " 

I belong to General Kilpatrick Post of the Grand 
Army of the Republic in New York, and naturally 
take an interest in that great cavalry officer. I wanted 



2 5 ELI PERKINS— THIRTY YEARS OF WIT. 

to get a good story about "Kill" to tell the comrades, 
so I remarked casually to the general : 

"Kilpatrick was a good fighter, wasn't he?" 

"Yes," said Sherman. " 'Kill' was a good fighter, 
and a great boaster, too. He had a right to boast, but 
he could never boast stronger than he fought. One 
day," continued the general, "Kilpatrick was recount- 
ing his experience in driving back rebel reinforcements 
at Chancellorsville. Listening to him was a crowd of 
old soldiers, among whom was Moseby. 

' 'Why,' said Kilpatrick, 'the woods swarmed with 

rebels. I had two horses shot under me and ' 

' 'What did you do then, Kill?' asked Custer. 

" 'Why, I jumped on to a Government mule; a ball 
knocked me off, but the mule charged right ahead into 
the rebel ranks. I never knew what became of that 
mule.' 

' 'Why, General,' said Moseby, 'I saw that mule. 
He came right into our lines.' 

' 'Well, I'm glad to see my words confirmed,' said 
Kilpatrick seriously. 'Then you really saw him?' 

" 'Yes, sure.' 

" 'Dead?' 

"'Yes.' 

" 'Head shot off?' 

" 'No, died from mortification.'" 

"I suppose our pickets often talked with the rebels?" 
I remarked. 

"Oh, yes," said the general, "and joked with them, 
too. On the evening before Hooker's last unsuccessful 
attempt to storm Fredericksburg, one of Fitz Hugh 
Lee's men discovered a squad of Kilpatrick's cavalry 
and shouted : 



GENERAL SHERMAN'S ANECDOTES. 29 

" 'Hello, Yanks! Howd'y?' 
'We're all right. We're coming to oee you pretty 
quick.' 

' 'Come on!' shouted Lee's men. 'We've got room 
enough to bury you !' " 

To illustrate how much the old soldier likes a joke, 
even at the expense of the army, I give this. One day 
at the Milwaukee Soldiers' Home, where I had lectured 
to 600 old soldiers, I went in and talked with the 
veterans. 

"You were in a good many battles," I said to a 
battle scarred private. 

"Yes, a good many. Seven Pines, Chancellorsville, 
the Wilderness " 

"Well, what was the bloodiest battle you were ever 
in? Where did the balls fall the thickest?" 

"Gettysburg, sir — Pickett's charge — the balls flew 
like hailstones — and " 

"Why didn't you get behind a tree?" 

"Get behind a tree!" repeated the old soldier indig- 
nantly. "Get behind a tree ! why, there wasn't trees 
enough for the officers!" 

General Sherman was very fond of telling the follow- 
ing story about General Thomas. Many a New York 
dinner table has listened to it. 

"You see," said the general, " General Thomas was 
junior to me in rank but senior in service. 'Pap,' as 
the boys called him, was a severe disciplinarian. Well, 
in the Atlanta campaign he had received many com- 
plaints about the pilfering and plundering committed 
by one of his brigades, and, being resolved to put this 
offense down, he issued some strict orders, menacing, 
with death any who should transgress. The brigade 



30 ELI PERKINS— THIRTY YEARS OF WIT. 

in question wore for its badge an acorn, in silver or 
gold, and the men were inordinately proud of this 
distinctive sign. Several cases of disobedience had 
been reported to the general, but the evidence was 
never strong enough for decisive action, until one day, 
riding with an orderly down a by-lane outside the 
posts, Thomas came full upon an Irishman who, having 
laid aside his rifle, with which he had killed a hog, was 
busily engaged in skinning the animal with his sword- 
bayonet, so as to make easy work with the bristles, 
etc., before cooking pork chops. 

' 'Ah,' cried the general, 'you rascal, at last I have 
caught you in the act. There is no mistake about it 
this time, and I will make an example of you, sir!' 

"'Bedad! General!' said the Irishman, straighten- 
ing himself up and coming to the salute, 'it's not 
shootin' me that you ought to be at, but rewardin' 
me.' 

" 'What do you mean, sir?' exclaimed General 
Thomas. 

" 'Why, your Honor!* the soldier replied, 'this bad 
baste here had just been disicratin' the rigimental 
badge ; and so I was forced to dispatch him. It's 
'atin' the acorns that I found him at !' 

"Even General Thomas was obliged to laugh at 
this, and the soldier saved his life by his wit." 

When I asked General Sherman what was the 
bravest thing he ever did, he said : 

"Well, Eli, I saved a man's life once." 

"Who was it?" I asked. 

"Joe Jefferson." 

"Why, how did you save his life?" 

"But I did, though," continued Sherman; "and I 



GENERAL SHERMAN'S ANECDOTES. 3 1 

look back to it with unalloyed pride and pleasure. It 
is something to be proud of, saving such a life as 
belonged to Joe Jefferson." 

"How did it happen? Please tell me." 

"Well," said Sherman solemnly. "It occurred last 
summer. We were both in the parlor upstairs, talking 
to some ladies. Joe had to leave early, and excused 
himself. After he went out I noticed a bundle of 
manuscript on the floor. I thought at first it belonged 
to me, but finding mine safe, I hurried out to the 
elevator after Joe, but he had gone by way of the 
stairs. I halloed 'Joe, Joe,' but he didn't hear me. I 
ran down after him two steps at a time. I finally 
caught up with him, and, handing him the manuscript, 
said: 

' 'Here, Joe, you've forgotten something.' 

"A serious expression spread over his face, as he 
took it, and said, in a tremulously solemn and impressive 
voice : 

" 'My God, you've saved my life!' 

"It was his autobiography, which he was engaged 
upon at the time." 

" Speaking of General Grant's strategy," said Gen- 
eral Sherman, "Grant told me that he thought he 
learned strategy from his father. He said that when 
he was a little boy, living on his father's farm in Ohio, 
his father took him into the stable one day, where a 
row of cows stood in their unclean stalls, and said : 

'Ulysses, the stable window is pretty high for a 
boy, but do you think you could take this shovel and 
clean out the stable?' 

' 'I don't know, father,' said he; 'I never have done 
it.' 



32 ELI PERKINS— THIRTY YEARS OF WIT. 

'Well, my boy, if you will do it this morning, I'll 
give you this bright silver dollar/ said his father, 
patting him on the head, while he held the silver 
dollar before his eyes. 

Good,' said he ; 'I'll try ;' and then he went to work. 
He tugged and pulled and lifted and purled, and finally 
it was done, and his father gave him the bright silver 
dollar, saying: 

'That's right, Ulysses, you did it splendidly; and 
now I find you can do it so nicely, I shall have you do 
it every morning all winter' " 

One of the very best stories about General Sherman, 
and the one above all others that will go into history, 
is really founded on fact. Sherman, Grant, Jeff Davis, 
and Lee fought all through the Mexican war. That 
war added Texas, Southern California, New Mexico, 
and Arizona to our possessions. No one knew what 
these new possessions were worth, for they had never 
been surveyed. Well, after the war, and Mexico had 
ceded the new possessions to us, President Taylor sent 
Captain Sherman out to Arizona and New Mexico to 
survey them. Sherman was gone two years. He pene- 
trated the sandy deserts of Arizona and New Mexico, 
and looked over the cactus country of Southern Cali- 
fornia, and then returned to Washington, and called 
on the President. 

"Well, Captain," said President Taylor, "what do 
you think of our new possessions? will they pay for 
the blood and treasure spent in the war?" 

"Do you want my honest opinion?" replied Sher- 
man. 

"Yes, tell us privately just what you think." 

"Well, General," said Sherman, "it cost us one 



GENERAL SHERMAN'S ANECDOTES. 33 

hundred millions of dollars, and ten thousand men to 
carry on the war with Mexico." 

"Yes, fully that, but we got Arizona, New Mexico, 
and Southern California." 

"Well, General," continued Sherman, "I've been out 
there and looked them over, — all that country, — and 
between you and me I feel that we'll have to go to 
war again. Yes, we've got to have another war." 

"What for?" asked Taylor. 

"Why, to make 'em take the darned country back!" 

General Sherman always said with pride that the 
Army of the Tennessee never retreated. They started in 
at Memphis and came out at Charleston and Wilming- 
ton in a fourth of the time that it took the Army of the 
Potomac to see-saw back and forth between Washing- 
ton and Richmond. One day after the war the general 
said he was talking with a veteran from the Army of 
the Potomac. The soldier was describing the big fight 
of Hooker at Chancellorsville. 

"Did the rebels run?" asked Sherman. 

"Did they run?" repeated the soldier. "Did the 
rebels run? Great Scott! I should say they did run. 
Why, general, they run so like thunder that we had to 
run three miles to keep out of their way, and if we 
hadn't thrown away our guns they'd run all over us 
sure!" 

"There was one thing in which the Army of the 
Potomac was vastly our superior," said General Sher- 
man to General Howard, who commanded the Eleventh 
Corps when it made its wild retreat. 

"What was that?" asked Howard. 

"Speed, simple speed," said the general, with a 
twinkle of the eye. 



34 ELI PERKINS— THIRTY YEARS OF WIT. 

"What kind of a soldier was General Garfield?" I 
asked the general. 

"Good, generous, and brave, and never once lost 
faith or wavered in his belief that the Republic would 
win. He wrote private letters to Secretary Chase, 
whom he loved as he did a father. These letters 
criticised methods, but they expressed no doubt about 
our ultimate success. 

"One of the funniest characters in Garfield's brigade 
was an Irish sentinel who was detailed on guard after 
the battle of Chickamauga. It was his first experi- 
ence in guard mounting, and he strutted along his beat 
with a full appreciation of his position. As a citizen 
approached he shouted : 

" 'Halt ! Who comes there?' 

" 'A citizen !' 

" 'Advance, citizen, and give the countersign.' 

"'I haven't the countersign; and if I had, the 
demand for it at this time and place is something very 
strange and unusual,' rejoined the citizen. 

" 'An' by the howly Moses, ye don't pass this way 
at all, be jabers, till ye say "Bull Run," ' was Pat's 
reply. 

"The citizen, appreciating the 'situation,' advanced 
and cautiously whispered in his ear the necessary 
words. 

''Right! Pass on,' and the wide-awake sentinel 
resumed his beat. 

"This same sentinel," said Sherman, "was afterward 
accused of sleeping on his watch. General Garfield 
called the man to his tent to lecture him before his 
court martial. 

''How could you commit such a crime?' asked the 



GENERAL SHERMAN'S ANECDOTES. 35 

general. 'Do you not know that it is death to be 
caught sleeping on your watch?' 

''It is false,' said the sentinel. 'How in the divil 
could I sleep on me watch when it was in the pawn- 
broker's in Memphis?' 

"Speaking of tact," said the general, "tact saved a 
good many officers in the volunteer service. One day 
Captain Ward of Indiana, a fresh volunteer officer, 
stepped up to two soldiers who were practicing with 
their rifles. 

" 'See here,' he said, grasping a rifle, 'you shoot 
wretchedly. Let me show you how to shoot !' 

[He shoots and misses.] 
' 'There,' he says, 'that is the way you shoot.' 

[Shoots and misses again.] 

" 'And that is the way you shoot,' turning to the 
second soldier. 

[Shoots again and hits the mark.] 

" 'And that is the way I shoot.' 

"This same Indiana captain was struggling along be- 
fore Atlanta, almost worn out with the march. When 
he saw his company in bad disorder, he gathered him- 
self together and shouted : 

"'Close up there, boys — doggone it, close up! If 
the rebels should fire on you when you're straggling 
along that way, they couldn't hit a darn one of you ! 
Close up !' 

"I met the Indiana captain's father afterward," said 
the general, "and asked him about his son. 

1 'Well, I have two sons,' he said, 'and I've made a 
mistake with them. One is in a bank and the other is 
in the army. The one in the bank, who ought to be 
drawing drafts, spends all his time shooting; while the 



36 ELI PERKINS— THIRTY YEARS OF WIT. 

one in the army, who ought to be a good shot, is always 
drawing drafts on me for money.' " 

Speaking of Admiral Farragut one evening, General 
Sherman said the best thing happened to the admiral 
in New Orleans: 

"You see, a week after Farragut had taken the city, 
he went on shore, where he met one of the sailors of 
the fleet who had been drinking too much. The 
sailor, being intoxicated, failed to salute the admiral. 

" 'See here !' said the admiral, who was very strict 
in regard to discipline, 'do you belong to the United 
States Navy?' 

" 'Wall (hie), I don't know whether I do or (hie) 
not.' 

"You don't, sir? Well, what ship do you belong 
to?' 

" 'I don't (hie) know that, either.' 

" 'Well, sir, do you know me?' 

" 'No (hie) sir.' 

"'Well, sir, I am Admiral Farragut, commander of 
the United States Navy.' 

"'Well, Admiral (hie), I know one thing (hie); 
you've got a good (hie) job !' " 

"What was the most humorous incident in the war?" 
I asked. 

"What seemed to be the most humorous thing to a 
German soldier, seemed rather serious to me," said 
Sherman. "Among my 'bummers' was a German 
whom they falsely accused of foraging chickens. When 
they arrested him he smiled all over. They put him 
in the guard house and he was in a broad grin. Finally 
they bucked and gagged him and he laughed uproari- 
ously. 



GENERAL SHERMAN'S ANECDOTES. 37 

4 'What are you laughing at, you rascal?' screamed 
the sergeant. 

1 'Vi (haw, haw!) I vos de (haw, haw) wrong man !' ' 

The following anecdote is apropos to General Sher- 
man : 

One morning in Saratoga Governor Curtin, the old 
war governor of Pennsylvania, now a varioloid Republi- 
can or mugwump, sat down on the States balcony by 
Senator Wade Hampton, one of the proudest of the 
old South Carolina rebels. They are both keen wits, 
and both gentlemen of the old school. 

"I tell you, governor," began General Hampton 
enthusiastically, "South Carolina is a great State, sir — 
a great State." 

"Yes; South Carolina is a State to be proud of," said 
Governor Curtin. "I agree with you. I knew a good 
many distinguished people down there myself — and 
splendid people they were, too — as brave as Julius 
Caesar and as chivalric as the Huguenots." 

"You did, sir !" said Senator Hampton, warming up 
with a brotherly sympathy. "Then you really knew 
public men who have lived in our old Calhoun State? 
You knew them?" 

"Oh, bless you, yes!" continued Governor Curtin, 
drawing his chair up confidentially. "I knew some of 
the greatest men your State has ever seen — knew them 
intimately too, sir." 

"Who did you know down there in our old Palmetto 
State?" asked Senator Hampton, handing Governor 
Curtin his cigar to light from. 

"Well, sir, I knew General Sherman and General 
Kilpatrick, and " 

"Great guns !" interrupted Senator Hampton, and 



3 8 ELI PERKINS— THIRTY YEARS OE WIT. 

then he threw down his cigar and commenced winding 
his Waterbury watch. 

General Sherman could spin reminiscences of the 
war by the hour. He could tell about Bragg, and Jeff 
Davis, and General Scott in Mexico. 

"General Scott," he said, "was, perhaps, the proudest 
man in the Union army. He never appeared except 
in a full-dress uniform, covered with gilt spangles and 
buttons. Sheridan and Grant were just the opposite. 
Horace Porter, who was present, says, 'Grant received 
General Lee's sword at Appomattox while dressed in 
a common soldier's blouse.' 

"One day," continued the general, "General Scott 
called on a lady away out in the suburbs of Washing- 
ton. Her little boy had never seen a soldier, especially 
such a resplendent soldier as General Scott. When 
the general rang the bell, the boy answered it. As he 
pulled open the door, there stood the general in gilded 
epaulets, yellow sash, and a waving plume on his hat. 

" 'Tell your mother, little man,' said the general, 'to 
please come to the door a moment ; I want to speak 
to her.' 

"Charlie went upstairs and appeared before his 
mother, with the most awestruck face. 

"Mamma, some one at the door wants to see you,' 
he said tremblingly. 

" 'Who is it, my son?' 

" 'Oh, I don't know, mamma, but I dess it's Dod.' ' 

One of the smartest things the grizzled old general 
ever said was the remark he made about a New York 
dude. 

"What would you do if I were you and you were 
me, General," tenderly inquired the young swell. 



GENERAL SHERMAN'S ANECDOTES. 39 

"Oh, you must excuse me," said the general 
modestly. 

"What would I do," growled the grand old soldier, 
when the dude had gone, "what would I do if I were 
it; I'll tell you what I'd do. If I were a dude I 
would throw away that vile cigarette, cut up my 
cane for firewood, wear my watch-chain underneath 
my coat, and stay at home nights and pray for 
brains." 

"Speaking of war stories," said General Sherman, 
"the best thing happened in Howard's Eleventh Corps. 
Sickles told me the story. It seems that they had a 
drummer boy over there who always lived well. He 
was in Col. Arrowsmith's regiment, the Twenty-sixth 
N. Y. This drummer, while the regiment was on the 
move, had a penchant for foraging on his own account, 
and the chickens had to roost high to escape his far- 
reaching hands. Whenever night overtook them, this 
drummer had a good supper provided for himself. On 
one occasion he had raked in a couple of turkeys and 
had put them into his drum for convenience in carry- 
ing. When the regiment was halted for the night, 
Colonel Arrowsmith immediately ordered dress parade, 
and the drummers were expected to beat up. The 
forager made his drumsticks go, but the quick-eyed 
colonel noticed that he was not drumming. 

" 'Adjutant,' said the colonel, 'that man isn't drum- 
ming. Why ain't he drumming.' 

"The adjutant stepped up to him, saying, 'Why 
ain't you drumming?' 

" 'Because,' said the quick-witted drummer, T have 
got two turkeys in my drum, and one of 'em is for the 
colonel.' 



4° ELI PERKINS— THIRTY YEARS OF WIT. 

"The adjutant went back and the colonel asked, 
'What is it?' 

' 'Why, he says he has got two turkeys in his drum, 
and one of 'em is for the colonel.' 

"Up to this point the conversation had been carried 
on sot to voce, but when the adjutant reported, Colonel 
Arrowsmith raised his voice so that all could hear. 

" 'What! sick, is he? Why didn't he say so before? 
Send him to his tent at once.' " 



REMINISCENCES OF WM. R. TRAVERS. 



Travers's Joke on the Englishman — A. T. Stewart, Joe Mills, Henry 
Clews, Jay Gould, and August Belmont. 

GENERAL SHERMAN'S interest in his old West 
Point class-mate, Wm. R. Travers, as manifested 
by his letter published in the previous chapter, led me 
to collect all the good stories by and about that charm- 
ing gentleman. To get these stories I have had long 
and pleasant conversations with Leonard and Lawrence 
Jerome, Henry Clews, August Belmont, and Mr. De- 
pew. Mr. Travers died at Bermuda, March 19, 1887; 
and Leonard and Lawrence Jerome have since followed 
their boon companion. 

The great wit married a daughter of Reverdy John- 
son, of Baltimore, our ex-Minister to England, after 
which he moved to New York and formed a partnership 
with Leonard Jerome, whose daughter married Lord 
Randolph Churchill. Mr. Travers belonged to McAlis- 
ter's 400, but is chiefly celebrated for not resembling 
that organization in any other particular. 

Mr. Travers was a stammerer. He never spoke 
three consecutive words without stammering. This 
stammer added to the effectiveness of his wit, as 
Charles Lamb's stammer added to his wit. His fame 
got to be so great as a stammerer that he was made 
the hero of a thousand stammering stories, which he 
never heard of until they were read to him from the 



42 ELI PERKINS— THIRTY YEARS OF WIT. 

newspapers. But his shoulders were broad enough and 
his heart was big enough to father them all. 

Speaking of his family one day to an obtuse English 
friend of Lord Randolph Churchill, Mr. Travers hesitat- 
ingly remarked : 

"Yes I c-came from a large f-fa-family, a v-v-very 
i-large f-family !" 

"Aw! how large, Mister Travers?" asked the English- 
man. 

"There were t-t-ten of us boys, and each of us had 
a s-s-sister." 

"Aw, remarkable!" said the obtuse Englishman. 
"Then there were twenty of you?" 

"N-no," said Travers scornfully, "1-1-leven." 

Englishmen were always the natural prey of Jerome 
and Travers. Jerome pumped them full of the most 
astonishing stories of Travers's career as a warrior, 
hunter, yachtsman, statesman, financier, and philoso- 
pher, and then let Travers get out of it as best he 
could. 

One day Jerome was showing an Englishman a queer 
toy. It was an automatic English dude, with big cane 
and eye-glasses. 

"Why, it don't seem to work well," said the English- 
man. 

"T-t-they never d-d-do," said Travers. 

Mr. Travers had Southern blood in him, and he was 
inclined to be an aristocrat. He was always saying 
spiteful things about tradesmen like Astor, Lorillard, 
and A. T. Stewart. Stewart was elected on one occa- 
sion to preside at a meeting of citizens during the war. 
Travers was present in the audience. When Mr. 
Stewart took his gold pencil case from his pocket and 






REMINISCENCES OF WM. R. TRAVERS. 43 

rapped with its head on the table for the meeting to 
come to order, Travers called out, in an audible tone : 

"C-CASH!" 

This brought down the house, and no one laughed 
more heartily than Mr. Stewart, although it was a se- 
vere thrust at himself. 

Mr. Travers once went down to a dog-fancier's in 
Water Street to buy a rat-terrier. 

"Is she a g-g-good ratter?" asked Travers, as he 
poked a little shivering pup with his cane. 

"Yes, sir; splendid! I'll show you how he'll go 
for a rat," said the dog-fancier, and then he put him in 
a box with a big rat. 

The rat made one dive and laid out the frightened 
terrier in a second, but Travers turned around, and ram- 
ming his hand into his pockets called out : 

"I say, Johnny, w-w-what'll ye t-t-take for the r-r-rat?" 

I never knew but one joke ever perpetrated on Mr. 
Travers, though he was always getting jokes on to 
other people. 

We had one stammering waiter at the States in 
Saratoga, but he never stammered unless excited. 
When talking to a stammering man he became doubly 
nervous and would stammer fearfully. Joe Mills, who 
with his brother, D. O. Mills, used to open oysters 
before they went to California, became millionaires, and 
joined the aristocracy and the 400, wanted to get even 
with Travers, who had been making fun of his French 
accent. So he got the head-waiter to station this 
stammering waiter at Travers's table, and then we all 
watched the result. 

The great wit was a little nervous himself that day, 
having patronized the wrong horse at the races, and 



44 ELI PERKINS—THIRTY YEARS OF WIT. 

having eaten a bilious supper at Moon's the night be- 
fore. 

At first Mr. Travers was troubled by a cold plate, 
then the soft shell crabs were not browned properly, 
and the eggs were too rare. 

"T-ta-take 'em o-o-off," he said, frowning at the 
waiter, and pointing to the eggs. 

"W-wha-what f-f-for?" asked the waiter. 

"N-n-never mind; take 'em o-o-off!" 

\ 'The h-h-ham suits you, d-d-don't it?" stammered the 
waiter. 

"N-no; o-off with it!" said Travers. 

"But what shall I b-b-bring you?" 

"W-w-why, anything — and q-q-quick, too !" 

"But t-t-tell me one thing before I go," said the 
waiter. 

"Well, w-w-what is it?" 

"Why, p-p-please tell if you c-c-came here to eat or 
to have a f-f-fit f ' " 

The next day, to get even with Mr. Mills, Travers 
told more stories about his French accent. He said 
that Joe, who had been in Cuba for his health, finally 
returned to Key West, and sent this telegram to 
Leonard Jerome : 

Leonard Jerome, Stock Exchange : Tell the members of 
the Stock Exchange that I have arrived safely on terra cotta. 

J. M. 

"When Joe came down to the street after arriving in 
New York," said Travers, "I asked him how he felt." 

"'How do I feel?' Comment est-ce que je me porte, 
you mean," said Mr. Mills. 

"Yes, as you French scholars say, 'How do you carry 
yourself,' Joe?" 



REMINISCENCES OF WM. R. TRAVERS. 45 

"Oh, we. Well, I feel just splendid — splendide. 
When I went to "Cuba I was a very sick man — tres 
malade ; but now (with an expressive French shrug) 
I feel — I feel new plus ulster." 

I asked Mr. Mills afterward if he really said new plus 
ulster and he denied it. "It's one of Bill Travers's 
jokes, Eli," he said. "I guess I know how to talk French 
— trots ans a Paree. But I'll tell you honestly, Eli, what 
I did say. When Travers said I looked sick and 
wouldn't live a year, I just snapped my fingers in the old 
fellow's face and walked off in the — in the utmost nom 
de plume/" 

Mr. Depew says he was at the Academy of Design 
one evening looking at the famous picture "Luther at 
the Diet of Worms." 

A little while afterward he met Mr. Mills and 
asked him if he had seen "Luther and the Diet of 
Worms?" 

"I saw Luther," said Joe, "but I didn't see any 
worms. That must have been an awful diet — diet of 
worms; c est tres mal !" And Joe gave a real French 
shrug with both shoulders. 

Mr. Henry Clews says this dialogue actually oc- 
curred in Newport. 

Mr. Travers called on Mrs. Belmont at her cottage one 
morning and said : 

"M-M-Mrs. B-B-Belmont, have y-y-y-you ever 
b-b-b-b-been in S-S-S-ain " 

"Why, Mr. Travers!" said the astonished Mrs. Bel- 
mont, "what do you mean?" 

"H-h-h-ave you ever b-b-b-been in-in-in-in S-S-Sain — 
in S-S-Sain — have y-y-y-y-you ever b-b-b-b-been in Sain 
■ — i-i-i-i-n Sain " 

"Now, no joking here," said Mrs. Belmont. "I am 



4 6 ELI PERKINS— THIRTY YEARS OF WIT. 

too provoked to listen to you," and she went across the 
room. 

"Mr. Travers," said Mr. Belmont, shortly afterward, 
''Mrs. Belmont says you've been trying to joke 
her." 

"N-n-no!" said Travers, "I was only trying to ask 

your wife if sh-sh-she had ever been in S-S-S-S-aint 

L>> 
OU1S. 

The old parrot story, which I gave fifteen years ago 
in "Saratoga in 1901," is good enough to repeat. 

Mr. Travers went into a bird-fancier's in Centre 
Street. 

"H-h-have you got a-a-all kinds of b-b-birds?" he 
asked. 

"Yes, sir, all kinds," said the bird-fancier politely. 

"I w-w-want to b-buy a p-p-parrot," hesitated Mr. T. 

"Well, here is a beauty. See its golden plumage!" 

"B-b-beautiful," stammered Travers. "C-c-can he 
t-t-talk?" 

"Talk !" exclaimed the bird-fancier. "If he can't talk 
better than you can I'll give him to you !" 

"One day," says Henry Clews in his "Thirty Years in 
Wall Street," "after Mr. Travers had moved to New 
York, an old friend from Baltimore met him in Wall 
Street. As it had been a long time since they saw 
each other, they had a considerable number of topics 
to talk over. They had been familiar friends in the 
Monumental City, and were not, therefore, restrained 
by the usual social formalities. 

" T notice, Travers,' said the Baltimorean, 'that you 
stutter a great deal more than when you were in Balti- 
more.' 

4 'W-h-y, y-e-s,' replied Mr. Travers, darting a look 



REMINISCENCES OF WM. R. TRAVERS. 47 

of surprise at his friend; 'of course I do; this is a 
d-d-darned sight b-b-bigger city.' " 

Travers saw Jay Gould one afternoon standing in 
front of the Stock Exchange buried in deep thought. 

''Clews," he said, turning to the banker, "that's a 
queer attitude for G-G-Gould." 

"How so?" asked Clews. 

"Why he's got his hands in his p-p-pockets — his own 
p-p-pockets." 

Mr. Clews, the well-known bald-headed banker, al- 
ways prides himself on being a self-made man. Dur- 
ing a recent talk with Mr. Travers, he had occasion 
to remark that he was the architect of his own destiny 
— that he w r as a self-made man. 

"W-w-what d-did you s-ay, Mr. Clews?" asked Mr. 
Travers. 

"I say with pride, Mr. Travers, that I am a self-made 
man — that I made myself " 

"Hold, H-Henry," interrupted Mr. Travers, as he 
dropped his cigar, "w-while you were m-m-making 
yourself, why the devil d-did-didn't you p-put some 
more hair on the top of y-your h-head?" 

Colonel Fisk was showing Mr. Travers over the 
"Plymouth Rock," the famous Long Branch boat. 
After showing the rest of the vessel, he pointed to two 
large portraits of himself and Mr. Gould, hanging, a 
little distance apart, at the head of the stairway. 

"There," says the colonel, "what do you think of 
them?" 

"They're good, Colonel — you hanging on one side 
and Gould on the other; f-i-r-s-t rate. But, Colonel," 
continued the wicked Mr. Travers, buried in thought, 
"w-w-where's our Saviour?" 



48 ELI PERKINS-THIRTY YEARS OF WIT. 

Mr. Travers, who is a vestryman in Grace Church, 
says he knows it was wicked, but he couldn't have 
helped it if he'd been on his dying bed. 

One of Travers's best bon mots was inspired by the 
sight of the Siamese twins. After carefully examining 
the mysterious ligature that had bound them together 
from birth, he looked up blankly at them and said, 
" B-b-br-brothers, I presume?" 

Mr. Clews says that the last time he saw Travers, 
the genial broker called at his office. Looking at the 
tape, Clews remarked : 

"The market is pretty stiff today, Travers." 

"Y-y-yes, but it is the st-st-stiffness of d-d-death." 

One day, many years ago, Mr. Travers was standing 
on the curb of New Street, opposite the Exchange, 
buying some stock from a gentleman whose aspect was 
unmistakably of the Hebrew stamp. 

" Wh-wh-what is your name?" asked Travers. 

"Jacobs," responded the seller. 

"B-b-but wh-what is your Christian name?" reiterated 
Travers. 

The Hebrew was nonplussed, and the crowd was con- 
vulsed with laughter. 

The first time Mr. Travers attempted to find Mon- 
tague Street, in Brooklyn, he lost his way, although he 
was near the place. Meeting a man, he said : 

"I desire to r-reach M-Montague St-Street. W-will 
you b-be kik-kind enough to pup-point the way?" 

"You-you are go-going the wrong w-way," was the 
stammering answer. "That is M-Montague St-Street 
there." 

"Are y-you mimick-mimicking me; making fun of 
me-me?" asked Mr. Travers sharply. 









REMINISCENCES OF WM. R. TRA VERS. 49 

"Nun-no, I assure you., sir," the other replied. "I-I 
am ba-badly af-flict-flicted with an imp-impediment in 
my speech." 

"Why do-don't y-you g-get cured?" asked Travers 
solemnly. "G-go to Doctor Janvrin, and y-you'll get 
c-cured. D-don't y-you see how well I talk? H-he 
cu-cured m-m-me." 

The best stammering story I know of happened with 
myself — actually happened. Travers wasn't in it. I 
lectured once before the Y. M. C. A. of Binghamton. 

The chairman of the lecture committee, Major Ste- 
vens, who is a great stammerer, was rather late in call- 
ing on me at the hotel. When he finally came, I said : 

"Major, where Ve you been. Where've you been?" 

"I've b-b-been down to, been d-d-down t-t-to-to " 

"Where did you say?" 

"I've been d-d-down to A-A-Albany, the c-c-c-capi- 
tal." 

"What have you been down to Albany for?" 

"I've b-b-been there to see the m-m-members of the 
leg-leg-legislature." 

"What did you want to see the members of the leg- 
islature for?" 

"Well, I wanted to get 'em to c-c-change the State 
con-consti constitution." 

"Why, what did you want to change the New York 
State constitution for?" 

"Because the St-St-State constitution g-g-guarantees 
to ev-ev-every m-m-man f-f-free s-s-speech, and I w-w- 
want it, or I w-w-want the d-d-darned thing changed!" 



CHAUNCEY DEPEW'S BEST STORIES. 



Depew on the Poughkeepsie Farm — Discussing Demand and Supply — 
The Crowded Connecticut Funeral — Absent-minded Daniel Drew — 
The Spotted Dog and Other Stories — Depew in Ireland — Fun with 
the Irish Girls — All of Depew's Stories. 

I HAD the delightful pleasure of riding in the seat 
with William M. Evarts one day from New Haven 
to the senator's farm at Windsor, Vt. We had been 
talking about typical Americans like General Butler, 
Daniel Voorhies, and General Alger of Michigan. All 
at once the thought struck me, and I asked the great 
forensic lawyer and descendant of Roger Sherman this 
question : 

"Who is our best typical American?" 

"Why, Chauncey Depew, by all odds," said Mr. 
Evarts. "He will go into history as our best all-around 
representative typical American. His life shows what 
a poor boy with grit and the blood of the Puritans in 
him can accomplish. Here is a case of a man, born, 
not poor, but in ordinary circumstances, on a sterile 
farm back of Poughkeepsie, who graduates at Yale, be- 
comes an accomplished scholar, an eloquent orator, a 
shrewd president of our greatest railroad, and with, per- 
haps, even presidential chances in the future." 

Governor Russell J. Alger told me once that he was 
born in poorer circumstances than Depew. At the age 
of ten Alger's mother was left with twelve children. 



CHA UNCE Y DEPEW'S BEST S TOR IE S. 5 l 

They lived in a leaky tenement house near Canton, 0., 
and little Russell often worked a whole week to earn 
money enough to buy a bushel of meal to keep his 
little brother and sisters from starving. Alger went 
into the war a private and returned a general. At the 
close of the war he took his ax and went into the 
woods in Michigan and actually cut cordwood. One 
man in Michigan now holds a receipt from Alger for 
sixteen dollars, in payment for cutting thirty-two cords 
of stove wood ! So Depew and Alger are both typical 
Americans. General Alger so often suffered with the 
cold when a poor boy that he has for years kept a stand- 
ing order at several Detroit coal yards to give a bucket 
of coal to any poor person in the city who needs it 
enough to carry it home. 

Depew knew what it was to work when a boy; and 
many times this great railroad magnate, who now 
makes presidents, talks politics with Gladstone, and 
jokes with the Prince of Wales, has driven the cows 
home in the rain. 

Mr. Depew's features are marked and individual. 
In his latest pictures he resembles Gladstone, and when 
he reaches the age of the eloquent sage of Hawarden 
his resemblance to the great English commoner will be 
startling. The great railroad magnate always beams 
with good humor, and is never too busy to see a friend, 
even if he has to say "hail and farewell" in the same 
breath. 

Mr. Depew's stories, like Lincoln's, always fit the 
occasion, and prove or illustrate some point. One day 
at a railroad meeting several railroad presidents, like 
Sam Sloan and President Roberts, of the Pennsylvania, 
were gravely discussing the subject of passes and the 



52 ELI PERKINS— THIRTY YEARS OF WIT. 

Interstate Commerce bill, when Depew remarked that 
a man gave him the queerest excuse for a pass that 
morning that he ever heard of. 

"What was it?" asked President Roberts. 

"Well, he came in and simply said he would like a 
pass to Albany." 

"On what grounds?" asked Roberts. 

" 'Simply these,' said the man : 'when I went up last 
Monday I was the only man on the train who didn't 
have a pass. General Husted had one, and Senator 
Irwin, and everybody else, and when I hauled out my 
ticket they all laughed at me. Now, Mr. Depew, I 
don't want to be laughed at.' " 

"And you passed him on that?" asked Sloan. 

"Yes, gave him an annual." 

I was talking one day, with Mr. Depew, about demand 
and supply. I said the price of any commodity is 
always controlled by the demand and supply. 

"Not always, Eli," said Mr. Depew; "demand and 
supply don't always govern prices. Business tact 
sometimes governs them." 

"W T hen," I asked, "did an instance ever occur when 
the price did not depend on demand and supply?" 

"Well," said Mr. Depew, "the other day I stepped 
up to a German butcher, and out of curiosity asked : j 

" 'What's the price of sausages?' 

" 'Dwenty cents a bound,' he said. 
' 'You asked twenty-five this morning,' I replied. 
' 'Ya, dot vas ven I had some. Now I ain't got 
none I sells him for dwenty cends. Dot makes me a 
repudation for selling cheab und I don'd lose nod- 
dings.' 

"You see," said Depew laughing, "I didn't want any 






CHA UNCE Y DEPE W'S BEST SI 'OKIES. 5 3 

sausage and the man didn't have any; no demand or 
supply, and still the price of sausage went down." 

Mr. Depew is perhaps the most popular dinner ora- 
tor and dinner guest in New York. He is President of 
the Union League Club, and his popularity will prob- 
ably keep him there as long as he can talk and eat. 
Besides presiding over his own club he is always booked 
for an annual speech at the New England, St. Patrick's, 
and St. Andrew's dinners. 

One day I was talking with him about going out to 
dinner so much. 

"Yes," he said, "I do go out a good deal." 

"But how can you stand it? I should think it would 
give you dyspepsia. I suppose you can eat every- 
thing?" 

"No, there are two things which I always positively 
refuse to eat for dinner," said Mr. Depew gravely. 

"And what are they?" 

"Why, breakfast and supper." 

"But the great crowds you have to face in heated 
rooms — they must wear on you," I said. 

"But the crowded dining-room," said Depew, "is 
more healthful than a funeral. Now, I have a friend in 
Poughkeepsie who goes out more than I do, but he 
goes to funerals. He never misses one. He enjoys a 
good funeral better than the rest of us enjoy a dinner. 

"I remember one day how I attended a funeral with 
my Poughkeepsie friend over in Dutchess County. 
The house was packed. The people came for miles 
around — and everybody came to mourn, too. Many 
eyes were wet, and some good old farmers, who had 
never seen the deceased, except at a distance, groaned 
and shed real tears. After we had crowded our way 



54 ELI PERKINS—THIRTY YEARS OF WIT. 

in among the mourners, I turned to my friend and 
said: 

" 'George, I don't see the coffin — where is it?' 

"But George couldn't answer. 

"After a while I made a remark to my friend about 
a lovely eight-day clock standing in the hall. 

' 'The clock!' said George mournfully, 'why, that 
isn't a clock, that's the coffin. They've stood him up 
in the hall to make room for the mourners!' " 

Speaking of absent-minded men one day, Mr. 
Depew said : 

"Daniel Drew was a very absent-minded man. Once 
he started for the Erie train and thought he had left 
his watch at home. First he thought he would go 
back after it. In an absent-minded way he took out 
his watch, looked at it, and exclaimed : 

''Whew! five o'clock, and the train goes out 5:10. 
I won't have time.' 

"Then he put his watch back in his pocket and 
telegraphed his wife to send it to Albany by express. 

"But Horace Greeley," said Depew, "was more 
absent-minded than Drew." 

"Do you remember the instance?" I asked. 

"Yes, Whitelaw Reid said when Greeley left the 
Tribune office one day he put a card on his office 
door, 'Will return at three o'clock.' 

"Happening to return at 1.30, and seeing the sign, 
he sat down in the hall and waited for himself till 
three o'clock. Greeley was absent-minded !" 

Mr. Depew gives the credit for his success in life to 
his mother. When I asked him to please describe her 
to me, he said: 

"My mother was a woman of broad culture and a 



CHA UNCE Y DEPE W'S BEST STORIES. 5 5 

great reader. She was intensely religious and believed 
in the efficacy of church attendance on the Sabbath. 
She did not care for money and never gave any advice 
in regard to it. Rich people did not impress her, but 
she was never tired of enthusiastically speaking of the 
honors of life and of men who had become famous 
as statesmen, orators, or authors. She pleaded so 
earnestly and urgently the duty of going to church 
that I am as uncomfortable now for the remainder of 
the week if absent from service at least once on Sunday 
as I was when a boy. She valued education beyond 
all acquisition, and her constant injunction was to get 
knowledge. Her often repeated remark was: 'It re- 
quires little money to live and anybody who tries can 
earn it, but very few can win distinction. Strive for 
that.' " 

The father of the great railroad president was a very 
frugal farmer, and also a very pious man. He never 
liked to have any time wasted in the prayer-meeting. 
One night, when the experiences had all been told, 
and the exhortations flagged, and the prayers grew 
feeble, Brother Depew arose and solemnly remarked : 

"I don't like to see this valuable time wasted. Brother 
Joslyn, can't you tell your experience?" 

Brother Joslyn said he'd told his experience twice 
already. 

"Then, Brother Finney, can't you make a prayer or 
tell your experience?" 

"I've told it several times to-night, brother, and 
prayed twice." 

"Well, my brethren," said Mr. Depew, "as the 
regular exercises to-night seem to halt a little, and as 
no one seems to want to pray or tell his experience. I 



56 ELI PERKINS— THIRTY YEARS OF WIT. 

will improve the time by making a few observations 
on the tariff." 

Mr. Depew took a trip to Blarney Castle and Kil- 
larney a year or two ago, and his reminiscences of 
that trip are very amusing. When I asked him if he 
saw any of those beautiful golden-haired Irish girls 
that we read about, he said : 

"Yes, about forty joined our party at Killarney — 
and such rosy-cheeked, red-lipped Irish girls they 
were ! Bright and merry as girls could be. They 
made a raid upon our pockets which cleaned out the 
last shilling, but it was fairly won and lost. 

" 'Sure, sor,' said a pretty girl, 'an' are the winters 
very cold in Ameriky?' 

" 'Yes,' I said. 

"Then/ said this bright-eyed siren, T have been 
expecting you, sor, and have knitted these woolen 
stockings to make you comfortable at home and keep 
your heart warm to ould Ireland.' 

" 'And is there nothing you will buy?' said another. 

" 'Nothing,' said I. 

' 'Well, then,' she cried, 'will yer honor give me a 
shilling for a sixpence?' 

' T am going to be married, sor,' lisped a mountain 
beauty, 'and me marriage portion is pretty near made 
up ! and Pat's getting very weary waiting so long.' 

''My money is all gone,' said I, when, quick as a 
flash, I heard a friend say to her: 

' 'Mary, thry him on getting to Ameriky.' " 

"Are the Irish really a witty people?" I asked. 

"They are very bright," said Mr. Depew. "The Irish 
are the quickest and most cheerful of all the peas- 
antry of Europe. While the English and Continental 



CHA UNCE Y DEFE IV S BEST S TORIES. 5 7 

people who are in like condition are little above the 
brutes, the Irish are as full of life, fire, and humor as if 
their state was one of frolic and ease. Touch one of 
them anywhere and at any time, and he bubbles with 
fun and smart repartee. When I was in Dublin, a 
political orator was describing his opponent as an 
extinct volcano, when a voice in the audience cried : 

" 'Oh, the poor crater.' 

"I said to a jaunting-car driver at Queenstown, to 
whom I owed a shilling : 

' 'Can you change a half-crown (two and sixpence)?' 

"'Change a half-crown, is it?' he cried, in mock 
amazement, 'do you think I have robbed a bank?' 

"At Killarney," continued Mr. Depew, "I met a 
delicious bit of wit and blunder. I asked the hotel 
clerk to stamp a letter for me. He put on the postage 
stamp, which bears Victoria's image, and then starting 
back as if horrified, said : 

' 'Bedad, but I have stood her majesty on her 
head.' 

' 'Well,' I said, 'that is not astonishing for an Irish- 
man ; but that is a double letter, and won't go without 
another stamp.' 

"'Another stamp, is it?' and slapping the second 
directly over the first, 'Begora,' said he, 'it will go 
now.' 

"I love the witty Irish so well," continued Mr. 
Depew, "that you must let me illustrate some of their 
characteristics. Some friends of mine, and among 
them a disciple of Bergh, were walking through Cork, 
and saw a boy of sixteen beating a donkey. Said the 
member of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty 
to Animals: 



5 8 ELI PERKINS— THIR T Y YEARS OF WI T. 

' ' 'Boy, stop beating your brother !' And as quick as 
a flash the boy answered : 

" 'I won't, father!' 

"I said to an Irish liveryman: 'Give me a good 
horse for a long ride.' 

' 'All right, your honor. The best in the world.' 

"The horse broke down in half an hour, and I said : 
'You rascal, why did you cheat me in this way?' 

" 'Sure, your honor, that horse is all right, but he is 
a very intelligent baste, and, knowing you are a 
stranger, he wants you to have time to see the 
scenery.' 

"As I was bidding farewell to Ireland, I said to my 
faithful attendant : 'Good-by, Pat.' 

" 'Good-by, yer honor,' he said pathetically. 'May 
God bless you, and may every hair in your head be a 
candle to light your soul to glory.' 

" 'Well, Pat,' 1 said, showing him my bald pate, 
'when that time comes there won't be much of a torch- 
light procession.' " 

While in Edinburgh Mr. Depew visited Stirling 
Castle, overlooking the battlefield of Bannockburn, 
where Bruce saved Scotland. In this castle King 
James was born and baptized into the Romish Church. 
When I asked Mr. Depew about Scotch wit he said: 

"The Scotch are witty when it pays to be witty. It 
was a Scotchman who advised his son to be virtuous, 
on the ground that virtue paid better than vice, and 
that he had tried both. At Stirling Castle my Scotch 
guide said : 

" 'Sir, the tower is closed which contains the crown 
jewels, and you can't get in.' 

" 'The doors are locked, you say?' 



CHA UNCE Y DEPE W'S BEST S TORIES. 5 9 

: ' 'Locked as tight as the Bank of England.' 

" 'Will a sovereign open them?' 

"The half of it will, sir!' he fairly yelled, in 
astonishment at the reckless prodigality of the offer." 

Mr. Depew's idea of Scotch wit is a good deal like 
my own. The Scotch are so practical that the paradox 
outrages them. 

The venerable Dr. McCosh, of Princeton, was a 
Scotch logician, and once wrote a magazine article on 
humor, but still this great philosopher could never see 
through a joke. I said this to President Andrew D. 
White of Cornell University at the States in Saratoga 
once. 

"Do you really think so?" asked the president. 

"I know it," I said. "Now, Dr. McCosh is up at the 
Clarendon ; let us go up there, and I will tell him a joke 
with a paradox in it, and if he sees the point I will ad- 
mit I am in error." 

Well, we went up and called on the venerable Prince- 
ton president ; and after we had talked about foreor- 
dination and the stoical philosophy of Seneca in the 
sweet reign of Marcus Aurelius, I told him the old par- 
adoxical story that I have often told about Bill Nye : 
How, meeting Bill one day, I remarked upon his beauti- 
ful white teeth. 

"Now, Mr. Nye," I said, "how do you keep your 
teeth so white?" 

"Oh, that's easy," he said; "all teeth will remain 
white if they are properly taken care of. Of course 
I never drink hot drinks, always brush my teeth morn- 
ing and evening, avoid all acids whatever, and, al- 
though I am forty years old, my teeth are as good as 
ever." 



60 ELI PERKINS— THIRTY YEARS OF WIT. 

"And that is all you do to preserve your teeth, is it? 
You do not select the silicates instead of oleaginous 
food?" 

"Oh, no ; I do nothing at all — except — well — except 
I generally put them in soft water nights." 

Dr. White laughed at the paradox, as does the 
reader, but logically minded Dr. McCosh put his hand 
to his brow as if in deep thought and remarked : 

"Yes, yes, but as a scientist I cannot see what chemi- 
cal property there is in warm water which can act upon 
the enamel of the teeth so as to make them white !" 

Dr. White looked at me first in bewilderment and 
then he burst into a second laugh louder than the first. 

Returning from Liverpool on the City of Rome I fell 
in with a Scotch journalist who said he could never see 
any fun in Artemus Ward. "He is so illogical, and 
says such impossible things !" he said. 

"What is one illogical thing that Mr. Ward has said?" 
I asked. 

"Why," said the Scotchman, "he said, 'he was bound 
to live within his means if he had to borrow money to 
do it.' Why, he wouldn't be living within his means if 
he borrowed money. Impossible ! How absurd !" 

Now this Scotchman's language was so precise and 
matter-of-fact, that he amused me as much as Artemus. 
When I asked my Scotch journalist what newspaper 
he wrote for, he said : 

"I write serious editorials for the Glasgow Herald." 

"Did you ever try to write humorous articles?" I 
asked. 

"Very seldom," he said. "I am very good at com- 
prehensive serious writing, but my wit, I fear, is con- 
strained. I joke with difficulty." 



CHA I T XCE \ r DEPE W'S BEST S TOE IE S. 6 1 

I am perpetually amused at the stupidity of John 
Bull. He always misconstrues every idea. Our 
American exaggerated stories that come in from 
Colorado and Wyoming, always astound the English- 
man. He believes these stories literally. I was very 
much amused at a party of English tourists whom I 
met at Oueenstown after they had been doing the 
lakes of Killarney. When I asked a John Bull who it 
was who made up his Killarney party, he said : 

"We had a rum fellow from Glasgow, a blarsted Yan- 
kee from Chicago, a bloody Irishman from Cork, a 
Canuck chap from Toronto, and two English gentle- 
men." 

One day a steady going John Bull said to me at Ken- 
sington: 

"You have queer people in St. Louis, 'av'n't you?" 

"Why?" I asked. 

"Because," he said, "don't chew know, I read a 
strange story in a newspaper about a St. Louis lady. 
Some one asked 'er on the steamer if she 'ad been 
presented at Court while in London, and she said : 

' 'Well, no. I didn't go to Court, myself, but my 
'usband did ; but he got let off with merely a nominal 
fine.' " 

Then as his single eye-glass fell off, he remarked "Ex- 
traordinary, wasn't it?" Then after a moment's deep 
thought he screwed on his eye-glass and continued sol- 
emnly, "I dare say this St. Louis story is true, for I 
really read it in a Chicago newspaper!" 

The French have a different humor from Sandy or 
John Bull. The Frenchman enjoys the impossible. He 
laughs at the paradox. One day in Paris I went to see 
the unveiling of the Bartholdi Statue of Liberty. The 



6 2 ELI PERKINS— THIR T Y YEA RS OF WIT. 

French President presented the statue to America and 
Minister Morton received it. After the ceremony Min- 
ister Morton introduced me to M. Francois Bricaire, 
the humorist of Figaro. I tried hard to get to the 
bottom of French humor. We exchanged our best 
stories. I find they have a different idea of humor 
from what we Americans have. All French stories are 
true. They never exaggerate, and the paradox is not 
funny to the Frenchman. It exasperates him. 

I asked M. Bricaire to tell me the funniest thing he 
could think of. 

"You Americans," he said, "are always funny to us. 
You do such unnatural things. Why, an American 
recently came here with a steam fire-engine. He was 
wild to have Paris adopt it. We said. 'Why, we never 
have any fires. Our buildings are fireproof.' 
' 'No fires?' he said. 'No fires in Paris?' 

" 'No, never.' 

" 'Pshaw,' he said, 'you are behind the times. It's 
because you have no steam fire-engines. Get the en- 
gines and the fires will come.' He made me laugh, ha, 
ha!" 

"He was like a Frenchman," continued the humor- 
ist, "who claimed to be a great inventor. When the 
Academy asked him what he had invented, he said : 

" 'I have discovered how to take the salt out of cod- 
fish.' Ha, ha — that is our best joke." 

But to return to Mr. Depew: 

"The ride of six miles from Edinburgh to Roslyn," 
continued Mr. Depew, "gave me an unusual opportun- 
ity to mark the difference in intelligence between the 
nationalities of the coachman class. The Irish driver 
is full of wit, humor, and fun, but his information is lim- 



CHA UNCE Y DEPE W'S BEST STORIES. 63 

ited, and he is a poor guide. The English driver is the 
stupidest of all mortals. He has neither imagination 
nor knowledge. I said to one as we drove through the 
ancient gates of an old walled town : 
'What were those arches built for?' 

" 'I don't know, sir.' 
' 'How long have you lived here?' 

" 'All my life, sir.' 

"In the square at Salisbury stood a statue of Sidney 
Herbert, for many years a distinguished member of 
parliament. I asked the coachman: 'Whose statue 
is that?' 

" 'Mr. Herbert, sir.' 

'Well,' said I, 'what did he do to deserve a statue?' 
' 'I don't know, sir, but I think he fit somewhere.' 
'Well, is that the reason he is dressed in a frock 
coat, and carries an umbrella instead of a sword?' 

" 'Yes, sir, I think so.' 

"I said to my driver at Torquay: 

' 'Do many Americans come here?' 
' 'Oh, yes, sir. H 'Americans are very fond of Tor- 
quay. Only yesterday morning, sir, two h'Americans, 
young ladies, 'ad me out before breakfast, and they 
made me drive them to an h'American dentist to have 
a tooth plugged, and the next day I had to go there 
very early again, because there was some trouble with 
that plug. Oh, the h'Americans are very fond of Tor- 
quay, sir.' " 

"What was the oldest ruin you visited in England?' 
I asked. 

"Well, old Stonehenge, ten miles from Old Sarum. 
The age of Stonehenge is not known. It is a mystery 
of the prehistoric past. There are four rows in circles 



64 ELI PERKINS—THIRTY YEARS OF WIT. 

of rough, uncut stone columns, each circle within the 
other. Two uprights, standing about twenty-five feet 
high, are bound by a third, resting across them on the 
top, and so on all the way round. This structure is in 
the midst of a chalk plain, and there are no stones like 
it nearer than Ireland. The stones weigh about eleven 
tons each. Where did they come from? How did a 
primitive people get them there? How did they raise 
these vast blocks and place them upon the top of the 
upright supports? Have other races lived, flourished, 
and perished, with high civilization, before our own? I 
made all these inquiries, and many more, of the old 
guide at the temple, and finally he said : 

' 'HT can h'always tell h'Americans by the h'odd 
questions they ask. Now that big stone yonder fell 
h'over and broke in the year 1797, and when I told this 
to one of your countrymen he said : 
"Well, did you see it fall?" 

" ' "Good heavens," said I, " that was nearly a hundred 
years ago." 

" 'Then I was only last week pointing out to a pretty 
young h'American lady, how only one day in the year, 
and that the longest day, the first rays of the rising sun 
come directly over that tallest stone, and strike on that 
stone lying down over there with the letter "h'A" on it, 
which means the altar. 

"'"Oh," she said, "I suppose you have seen it 
more than a thousand times." 

"'"Lord bless you, miss," said I, "it only happens 
once a year." ' 

"Henry Irving, the actor, told me that Toole, the 
comedian, said to him one day: 'And so you have 
done more in twenty years to revive and properly pre- 



CHA UNCE Y DEPE IV S BEST STORIES. 65 

sent the plays of Shakespeare than any man living, and 
were never at Stratford ? Let's go at once.' A few 
hours found them roaming over all the sacred and 
classic scenes by the Avon. As they were returning to 
the hotel in the early evening, they met an agricultural 
laborer coming home with his shirt outside his panta- 
loons, with his pipe in his mouth, stolid and content. 
Toole asked him : 

' 'Does Mr. Shakespeare live here?' 

" 'No, sor. I think he be dead.' 

' 'Well, do many people come to see his grave?' 

" 'Oh, yes, sor.' 

1 'What did he do to make these great crowds visit 
his house and the church where he is buried?' 

' 'I've lived here all my life,' said Hodge, scratching 
his head in great perplexity, 'but I don't know exactly, 
but I think he writ somethinV 

'"What did he write?' 

: ' 'I think,' said Hodge solemnly, 'I think it was the 
Bible.' " 

I told Mr. Depew's dog story years ago, but the 
great story-teller has changed it lately, so the last time 
I saw him I asked him to give me the new version. 

"But it is a chestnut, Eli," he said, and then he con- 
tinued thoughtfully. "Everything good is a chestnut. 
A good dinner is a chestnut ; and so is your old port 
wine, and your wife's love ; but you never get tired of 
them. The dog story really happened, you know. You 
see, when I was about fourteen years old my father lived 
on the old farm up at Poughkeepsie. One day after I 
had finished a five-acre field of corn my father let me go 
to town to see a circus. While in town I saw for the 
first time a spotted coach dog. It took my fancy and 



66 ELI PERKINS— THIRTY YEARS OF WIT. 

I bought it and took it home. When father saw it, his 
good old Puritan face fell. 

" 'Why, Chauncey,' he said sadly, 'we don't want 
any spotted dog on the farm — he'll drive the cattle 
crazy.' 

' 'No, he won't, father,' said I proudly; 'he's a 
blooded dog.' 

"The next day," said Mr. Depew, "it was raining, 
and I took the dog out into the woods to try him on a 
coon, but the rain was too much for him. It washed 
the spots off. That night I took the dog back to the 
dog dealer with a long face. Said I : 'Look at the dog 
sir; the spots have all washed off.' 

" 'Great guns, boy!' exclaimed the dog dealer, 'there 
was an umbrella went with that dog. Didn't you get 
the umbrella?' " 

At the last Presidential election the Democrats 
claimed every State. They claimed that Harrison 
was surely defeated, and that Cleveland had carried 
every State. 

"The Democrats claiming everything so," said De- 
pew, "reminds me of the Boston drummer who was din- 
ing at the Albany station. In announcing dessert the 
waiters sang out mince pie, apple pie, peach pie, and 
custard ! 

" 'Give me a piece of mince, apple, and peach,' said the 
drummer. 

' T say,' said the waitress, as she hesitated a moment, 
'what's the matter of the custard?' " 

Mr. Depew worships a sweet, pure American joke, 
and he never gets mad if he is made the victim of it. 
When the jovial railroad president arrived from Eu- 
rope the last time, the wits of the Union League Club 



CHA UNCE Y DEPE W S BEST S TOR IE S. 67 

had a good joke ready for him. Elliott F. Shepard, 
Vanderbilt's son-in-law, and Wm. M. Evarts had told 
it, and Mr. Dana had it ready for the Sti?i. The next 
day after Mr. Depew arrived from Europe, and before 
he heard the story, I was in Cornelius Vanderbilt's room 
in the Grand Central Depot. The story was about De- 
pew's experience on the steamer. I didn't know that 
Depew sat in the next room and overheard every word 
of the story through the half-open door. 

"A new story on Depew?" said Vanderbilt. 

"Yes, and Depew himself hasn't heard it yet." 

"What is it— tell it?" 

"Well," I said, "Evarts and the Union League fellows 
say that every evening on Depew's steamer, a dozen or 
so genial passengers clustered in the smoking saloon to 
tell stories and yarns about things in general. Every 
soul save one in the party kept his end up. The one 
exceptional member of the party did not laugh or in- 
dicate by even a twinkle of the eye any interest in the 
funniest jokes, and was as silent as a door-knob at the 
best stories. 

"This conduct began to nettle Mr. Depew and the 
other spirits, and when the final seance came around 
they had lost all patience with the reticent and unre- 
sponsive stranger. Mr. Depew was finally selected 
to bring him to terms. They were all comfortably 
seated and in came the stranger. 

' 'See here, my dear sir,' said Mr. Depew, 'won't you 
tell a story?' 

" T never told one in my life.' 

" 'Sing a song?' 

" 'Can't sing.' 

' 'Know any jokes?' persisted Mr. Depew. 



6S ELI PERKINS— THIRTY YEARS OF WIT. 

"'No/ 

"Mr. Depew and all were prepared to give it up when 
the stranger stammered and hesitated and finally made 
it known that he knew just one conundrum, but had 
forgotten the answer. 

" 'Give it to us,' said Mr. Depew and the others in 
chorus. 'Yes, give it to us; we'll find the answer.' 

" 'What is the difference between a turkey and me?' 
solemnly asked the stranger. 

" 'Give it up,' said Chairman Depew. 

" 'The difference between a turkey and me,' mildly 
said the stranger, 'is that they usually stuff the bird 
with chestnuts after death. I am alive.' " 

Vanderbilt smiled audibly, but a merry ha! ha! 
echoed from the next room. 

It was the happy laugh of Depew himself, and it 
grew louder till I left the building. When I meet Mr. 
Depew now I give him the whole sidewalk, and when I 
ride on his railroad I walk. 



NEW PHILOSOPHY OF WIT AND HUMOR. 



Wit and Humor Distinctly Separated — Wit, Imagination ; Humor, the 
Truth — Wits and Humorists Classified — Mark Twain, Dickens, Will 
Carleton, Nasby, Josh Billings, Danbury News Man, Burdette — 
Pathos. 

IT was years after I had left college ; yes, years after 
I had written humorous books and floated wit and 
humor as far as the English language goes, before I 
began to investigate philosophically the difference be- 
tween them. It was also years before I could separate 
satire and ridicule. In making this investigation I had 
no books to go to. All the mental philosophers like 
Lord Karnes, Whateley, Blair, and Wayland had 
left us only one erroneous definition, that "Wit is a 
short-lived surprise." Edison told me that he found 
all the data on electricity that had come down from 
Newton and Franklin and Morse erroneous. He 
threw their data away and commenced again. I did 
the same with wit and humor. I said, suppose a 
physician should give as silly a reason for the cause 
of death as the rhetoricians do of the cause of laughter. 
Suppose when I asked Dr. Hammond or Dr. MacKenzie 
what caused a patient's death, they should say : 

11 Why, he died from want of breath ! " 

"But what caused the want of breath? You are 
begging the question." 

" Oh, disease (genus), small-pox (species)." 

6 9 



7 o ELI PERKINS— THIR T Y YEA RS OF WIT. 

"Ah, now you have a perfect definition." 
Now, I ask the rhetoricians what causes the surprise? 
They do not know. I have discovered this cause. It 
is the magnification or minification of a thought beyond 
the truth into the imagination. So I find all humor is 
pure truth or nature ; while all wit is imagination. 
Humor is the photograph, while wit is an imaginative 
sketch. 

Now we can separate the humorists from the wits. 
Dickens w r as a pure humorist. The stories of " Little 
Nell,"" and " Smike," and " Oliver Twist," were descrip- 
tions true in letter and in spirit. No imagination. 
The characters actually lived, and Dickens simply pho- 
tographed them, dialects and all. 

HUMOR. 

Here is a little bit of pure humor: I caught it 
through the phonograph. 

While they were carrying my phonograph across 
Central Park I stopped to have Moses, a little black 
boy, black my boots. When my boots were half done, 
Julius, who, it seems, had been quarreling with Moses 
in the morning, came up. I saw there was fire in his 



* The London Literary World says : " Smike is still living in Bury 
St. Edmunds, where he keeps a toy shop. He is a tall, hatchet-faced 
old gentleman, proud of his romantic eminence. Carker was connected, 
through his father, with an eminent engineering firm, and lived in Oxford 
Road, where he prowled about, a nuisance to all the servant girls in the 
neighborhood. Carker, Major Bagstock, Mrs. Skewton, — whose real 
name was Campbell, — and her daughter were well-known characters in 
Leamington. Fifty years ago the Shannon coach, running between Ips- 
wich and London, was driven by a big,' burly old fellow named Cole, 
who was the veritable elder Weller." 



NEW PHILOSOPHY OF WIT AND HUMOR. 7 1 

eye, and I held the phonograph and caught this exact 
dialogue : 

"Look heah, boy: I'ze dun got my eye-ball on you, 
an* de fust thing you know I'll pound you to squash!" 

" Shoo ! Does you know who you is conversin' wid ?" 

"Doan' you talk to me dat way, black man." 

"Who's black man?" 

"You is." 
bo is you. 

"Look out, boy! A feller dun call me a niggah one 
time, and the county had to bury him." 

" 'An' you look out for me, black man; I'se mighty 
hard to wake up, but when I gits aroused I woz pizen 
all de way frew." 

"Shoo! I just want to say to you dat de las' fight 
I was in it took eight men to hold me. Doan' you get 
me mad, boy; doan' you do it." 

"Bum! I dass put out my hand right on yo' 
shoulder." 

" An' I dass put my hand on yours." 

" Now, what yer gwine ter do?" 

" Now, what yer gwine ter do?" 

"Shoo!" 

"Shoo!" 

As Moses moved away the phonograph ceased to 
catch his last words, but a flash Kodak camera would 
have shown him with his left hand waving defiantly, 
and a big "shoo" coming out of his mouth. 

You can catch the present humor with the phono- 
graph and camera for it goes to the eye and ear, but 
wit goes to the imagination and must be thought of to 
cause laughter. You cannot paint wit, for you cannot 
paint a thought. You can paint humor but not wit. 



72 ELI PERKINS— THIRTY YEARS OF WIT. 

WIT. 

Now here is a bit of wit that cannot be appreciated 
without a little thought: 

It was in the rational psychology class at Princeton 
and Dr. McCosh was instructing the class in term- 
ology. 

Turning to a student, the doctor commenced: 

"Now, Mr. Adams, take the terms, 'self evident' — 
terms often used; what do we mean by them? Can 
you express their meaning in other words?" 

"Well, hardly, Doctor. I can't recall other words 
that would express the same meaning." 

"I will be more explicit," said the doctor. "I will 
illustrate. Suppose, speaking anthropologically — sup- 
pose I should ask you if such a being as the fool killer 
ever existed?" 

"I should say I don't know — I never met him." 

"Ah, that is self evident," said the doctor. "The 
class is dismissed." 

A fool cannot laugh at this story. It requires 
thought — imagination. 

HUMOR. 

Here is another bit of phonographic humor between 
Mr. Isaacstein and a customer: 

"I sells you dot coat, my frent, for sayventeen shil- 
ling; you dake him along." 

"I thought, Isaacstein, that you didn't do business 
on Saturday. Isn't this your Sunday?" 

"My frent " (and the phonograph caught his low 
reverent voice), "my frent, to sell a coat like dot for 
sayventeen shilling vas not peesness, dot vas sharity." 

The time will come when the phonograph and Kodak 



NEW PHILOSOPHY OF WIT AND HUMOR. 73 

will do more truthful humorous work than Dickens 
did. 

Wit requires an afterthought. It is purely mental. 

WIT. 

Another case of wit : 

A beautiful young lady, a member of the 400, came 
into Hazard's drug store, under the Fifth Avenue 
Hotel, and asked him if it were possible to disguise 
castor oil. 

"It's horrid stuff to take, you know. Ugh !" said the 
young lady, with a shudder. 

"Why, certainly," said Mr. Hazard ; and just then, as 
another young lady was taking some soda water, Mr. 
Hazard asked her if she wouldn't have some too. After 
drinking it the young lady lingered a moment and 
finally observed : 

"Now tell me, Mr. Hazard, how you would disguise 
castor oil?" 

"Why, madam, I just gave you some " 

"My gracious me !" exclaimed the young lady, "why, 
I wanted it for my sister!" 

HUMOR. 

Here is a quaint little love story and a proposal 
given just as it occurred between a loving couple in 
East Tennessee. The very truth of it makes it 
humor: 

"D'ye lak me, Sue?" he asked, in a faltering voice. 

"Purty well, Jim." 

"How much, d'ye reckon?" 

"Oh, er good deal," and the blushes came to her 
cheeks, 



74 ELI PERKINS— THIRTY YEARS OF WIT. 

"But how much, now?" 
"Oh, erlot." 

"How'd yer lak ter " 

"Oh, Jim!" 

"How'd yer know what I war goin' ter say?" 

"I know'd." 

"What?" 

"You know." 

"I was goin' to ast ye ef ye'd go er fishin'?" 

"Ye wasn't nuther." 

"Yes, I war." 

"Jim!" 

"H'm!" 

"Ye don't lak me." 

"Yes, I do, a heap." 

"No, ye don't." 

"I orter know." 

(( IT V » 

How? 
"Why, Sue, didn't I jist ast yer ter git ready an' 

go " 

"Ye said ye war goin* to ast me ter go er fishin'." 

"Sue!" 

"What, Jim?" 

"I didn't mean it.' 

"Then what did ye mean?" 

"Oh, Sue, quit yer foolin' an' go an' ast yer paw." 



The blank lines are to be supplied by the imagina- 
tion and are really a phantom of wit, but the pure 
humor stops at "paw." 

Would you like to read a courtship which occurred 
up in Puritan New England? 



NEW PHILOSOPHY OF WIT AND HUMOR. 75 

Here it is and a very good example of humor: 

Seven long years ago, Jonas Harris began to "keep 
company" with Hannah Bell, and yet in all that time 
he had not mustered courage to propose a certain im- 
portant question. His house was lonely and waiting; 
hers was lonely enough to be vacated, and still Jonas 
could not bring himself to speak the decisive words. 
Many a time he walked up to her door with the courage 
of a lion, only to find himself a very mouse when she 
appeared. He had never failed in dropping in to 
cheer her loneliness on Christmas evening, and this 
year he presented himself as usual. The hearth was 
swept, the fire burned brightly, and Miss Hannah was 
adorned with smiles and a red bow. Conversation 
went serenely on for an hour or so, and then, when 
they both sat paring red-cheeked apples with great 
contentment, Jonas began to call upon his recollec- 
tions. 

"It's a good many years, ain't it, Hannah, since you 
and I sat here together?" 

"Yes, a good many." 

"I wonder if I shall be settin' here this time another 
year?" 

"Maybe I shan't be at home. Perhaps I shall go 
out to spend the evening myself," said Miss Hannah 
briskly. 

This was a blow indeed, and Jonas felt it. 

"Where?" he gasped. 

"Oh, I don't know," she returned, beginning to 
quarter her apple. "I might be out to tea — over to 
your house, for instance." 

"But there wouldn't be arybody over there to get 
supper for you." 



76 ELI PERKINS— THIRTY YEARS OF WIT. 

"Maybe I could get it myself." 

"So you could ! so you could !" cried Jonas, his eyes 
beginning to sparkle. "But there would be nobody 
to cook the pies and cakes beforehand." 

"Maybe I could cook 'em." 

At that moment Jonas's plate fell between his knees 
to the earth and broke in two, but neither of them 
noticed it. 

"Hannah," cried he, with the pent-up emphasis of 
seven long years, "could you bring yourself to think of 
gettin' married?" 

A slow smile curved her lips ; surely she had been 
given abundant time for consideration. 

"Maybe I could," she returned demurely, as she 
gently stroked the neck of the purring kitten. 

"Who?" asked Jonas falteringly. 

"It might be you, Jonas," and a film came into Han- 
nah's eyes. 

"O Hannah!" 

And Jonas has admired himself to this day for lead- 
ing up to the subject so cleverly. 

When Mr. Blathwait asked Mark Twain why he liked 
"Huckleberry Finn" the best of all his books, he said : 

"Because it has the truest dialect. I was born in 
the neighborhood where 'Huckleberry Finn' lived. 
He was a real character. I lived a great deal of my 
boyhood on a plantation of my uncle's, where Huckle- 
berry Finn and forty or fifty negroes lived, and so I 
gradually absorbed their dialect." 

Any dialect, — Irish, Scotch, or Negro, — when faith- 
fully rendered, is humorous. There is no imagination 
used in rendering a true dialect ; it is word painting. 
The humorist who can write a true dialect is as much an 



NEW PHILOSOPHY OF WIT AND HUMOR. 77 

artist as the man who can paint a true picture. One 
is done with the brush and the other with the pen. 

But as the simple portrait painter who copies nature 
does not require the subtle imagination of the ideal 
artist who paints faith and hope and love and despair; 
so the humorist who copies nature with the pen does 
not require the imagination and fancy of the wit who 
soars into the realms of thought. Rubens, when he 
painted the humdrum portrait of his fat wife, did not 
use the imagination that he displayed in his Antwerp 
"Descent from the Cross," or that Murillo used in his 
"Immaculate Conception." Teniers was a humorous 
Dutch painter. His pictures were portraits. The same 
with Knaus and Bouguereau, only using characters 
higher up in the social scale. Zamacrois and Vibert 
were wits with the brush. They added imagination 
to nature. So were Hogarth and John Leach, and so 
was Nast before he became a mugwump and had to 
ridicule truth instead of error. 

The dialects when rendered truthfully are charming 
humor. Dickens always used them and so does Geo. 
W. Cable in his Creole stories, and Joel Chandler 
Harris in his negro sketches. Bret Harte never fails 
to use the dialect of Calaveras, and John B. Gough was 
always felicitous when he told his Cornish stories. The 
charm of Denman Thompson is his life-like Yankee 
dialect, and Mrs. Burnett made her reputation by writ- 
ing "That Lass of Lowrie's" in the purest Lancashire. 

A writer will spend a week on one column of dialect. 

To illustrate faithful dialect humor: My dining-room 
boy, Francois, whom we brought with us from Paris, 
could never understand what we meant by "Jack the 
Ripper," whom he called "Jacques ze Rippair." One 



78 ELI PERKINS— THIRTY YEARS OF WIT. 

day it all came to him. He came to me wringing his 
hands in French glee, and said : 

"I like ze language Americaine. It is so strong, so 
true, so descripteeve. I go to ze man zat cut my hair, 
zat shave my barbe, vat you call my beard. I ask, 'Vat 
is Jacques ze Rippair?' 

" 'Jacques ze Rippair,' he say, 'Jacques ze Rippair. 
He is a dandee.' 

"Zen, ven I gets home to my house, I takes my 
dictionnaire and I looks for 'Jacques ze Rippair,' but I 
not find him. Zen I look for dandee, and I find that 
ze word is dandy, and zat it means a 'lady-killer.' Zen, 
when to my friend I say, 'Jacques ze Rippair is a man 
vat kills ladees,' he says, 'Right you are.' I like ze 
language Americaine, Messieur Landown, it is so eezee 
to understand." 

It was another bit of true dialect humor — faithfully 
phonographed Irish brogue — when Michael Donan 
walked into the sick room of Patrick Kelly. Patrick 
lay there very pale, with his eyes closed, and we 
heard Michael exclaim : 

"Howly Moses, Pat, it's murtherin' ill ye're lookin'! 
Fwat in the name av th' howly Virgin's the mather?" 

"Michael Donan ! an' is it yourself?" 

"Yis." 

"Well, yez knows that blatherin' spalpeen av Widdy 
Costigan's second husband?" 

"That I do.'* 

' He bet me a dollar to a pint I couldn't schwally an 
igg widout brakin' th' shell — th' shell av it." 

"Naw!" 

"Yis." 

"Did ye do it?" 



NEW PHILOSOPHY OF WIT AND HUMOR. 79 

"I did." 

"Then fwat's ailin' ye?" 

"It's doon there," laying his hand on his stomach. 
"If I joomp about I'll br'ak it an' cut me stummick 
wid th' shell. If I kape quiet the dom thing'll hatch 
oot an' I'll have a Shanghai rooster a-clawin' me 
insides." 

Now who are the humorists and who are the wits 
among the poets? Judge for yourself by the above 
standard. Will Carleton is a humorous poet, and 
Lowell in "Hosea Biglow." Carleton's poems are 
true in letter and in spirit — fact and dialect. In his 
farm ballads he simply records nature faithfully. So 
does Bret Harte in "Jim," and John Hay in "Little 
Breeches." 

James Whitcomb Riley tells me that his most 
humorous poems were written when a mere child wor- 
shiping at the shrine of nature. How true is his boy 
poem on "Our Hired Girl": 

Our hired girl, she's 'Lizabeth Ann ; 

An' she can cook best things to eat ! 
She ist puts dough in our pie pan, 

An' pours in sompin' at's good and sweet. 
An' nen she salts it all on top 
With cinnamon ; an' nen she'll stop, 

An' stoop, an' slide it, ist as slow, 
In the cook-stove so's 'twon't slop 

An' git all spilled ; nen bakes it — so 

It is custard pie, first thing you know ! 
An' nen she'll say : 
" Clear out o' my way ! 
They's time fer work, and time fer play, 

Take your dough an' run, child, run, 

Er I cain't git no cookin' done ! " 



J 



8o ELI PERKINS— THIRTY YEARS OF WIT 

Longfellow and Tennyson soar up into the imagina- 
tion. Our sentimental poets are refined wits. They 
deal entirely in the imagination and fancy. You have 
no idea how much of our pleasure is caused by imagina- 
tion or innocent exaggeration. We see it all around 
us. If a person imagines a thing and expresses it, 
that is exaggeration. You can't imagine a thing that 
is. You must imagine something that is not. It is 
only the brightest people who have vivid imaginations, 
and only the brightest people who have wit. 

The sweetest charm of the poet is caused by his 
imagination or exaggeration. When the divine psalm- 
ist says, "The morning stars sang together," he don't 
want to deceive you ; he exaggerates to please you. 
The stars never sang. Sentimental young people who 
have been out late at night have listened to these 
stars ever since Solomon prevaricated, but they never 
sang. Don't hold the poet to strict account. 

Joaquin Miller, the sweet poet of the Sierras, in a 
late poem, speaks of the "clinking stars." 

"Why, Joaquin," I said when I met him, "did you 
ever hear the stars clink?" 

"No," he said, laughing, "but the old poetical exag- 
geration about the stars singing, got to be a 'chestnut,' 
and I thought I'd make mine clink." 

Dear old Longfellow was a sweet Christian, and still 
he tuned his lyre and sang: 

The sun kissed the dewdrops and they were pearls. 

Now the sun never kissed any dewdrops, and it 
wouldn't have made pearls of them if it had. The 
aesthetic poet, in rugged Saxon, is a rank liar, but he 



NEW PHILOSOPHY OF WIT AND HUMOR. 81 

hides behind his poet's license, and we say he has the 
divine gift of imagination — divine afflatus! 

When the poets drop exaggeration and fancy, and 
let their heroes talk the dialect of nature, they become 
humorists. Lowell's "Biglow Papers" and Will Carle- 
ton's dialect farm ballads, I say, are pure humor. 

Mark Twain is both a humorist and a wit. When- 
ever he tells the absolute truth, close to life, like 
Dickens, he is a humorist ; but just the moment he lets 
his imagination play — just the moment he begins to ex- 
aggerate—stretch it a little — then that humor blossoms 
into wit. 

To show the reader the fine dividing line between 
wit and humor — the invisible line — and how humor can 
gradually creep into wit through exaggeration, Mark 
Twain, in one of his books, has a chapter on building 
tunnels out in Nevada. He goes on for five pages with 
pure humor — pure truth. He describes those miners 
just as they are — describes their dialects, describes 
their bad grammar, describes the tunnel ; but Mark 
can't stick to the truth very long before he begins to 
stretch it a little. He soon comes to a miner who 
thinks a good deal of his tunnel. They all tell him 
he'd better stop his tunnel when he gets it through 
the hill, but he says he "guesses not — it's his tunnel," 
so he runs his tunnel right on over the valley into the 
next hill. You who can picture to yourselves this 
hole in the sky, held up by trestle work, will see where 
the humor leaves off and the wit begins — where the 
truth leaves off and the exaggeration commences. 

We see humor all around us every day. Any one can 
write humor who will sit down and write the honest 



82 ELI PERKINS— THIRTY YEARS OF WIT. 

truth. There is no imagination in humor, while wit 
is all imagination — like the tunnel. Humor is what 
has been ; wit is what might be. I saw as good a 
piece of humor to-day as I ever saw in my life. 
I wish I had photographed it. I would if I had 
thought that it could be so good. A dear, good old 
lady and her daughter came into the depot at Pough- 
keepsie. She wasn't used to traveling, and was very 
nervous. Her eyes wandered about the depot a mo- 
ment, and then she walked nervously up to the station 
window and tremblingly asked : 

"When does the next train go to New York?" 

"The next train, madam," said the agent, looking at 
his watch, "goes to New York at exactly 3.30." 

"Will that be the first train?" 

"Yes, madam, the first train." 

"Isn't there any freights?" 

"None." 

"Isn't there a special?" 

"No, no special." 

"Now if there was a special would you know it?" 

"Certainly I would." 

"And there isn't any — ain't they?" 

"No, madam; none." 

"Well, I'm awful glad — awful glad," said the old 
lady. "Now, Maria, you and I can cross the track." 

How does the humorist do his work? 

I will tell you. I will lift the veil right here. The 
humorist takes any ordinary scene, like the old lady in 
the depot, and describes it true to life. That's all. 
Dickens used to go down into the slums of London 
and get hold of such quaint characters as Bill Sykes 
and Nancy. Then he used to watch them, hear every 



NEW PHILOSOPHY OF WIT AND HUMOR. 83 

word they uttered, hear their bad grammar and 
dialect, see every act they performed. Then he used 
to come into his room, sit down and write a photo- 
graph of what he saw and heard. And that was 
humor — truth in letter and in spirit. 

The humorist is truer than the historian or the 
poet. The historian is only true in spirit, while the 
humorist is true in spirit and in letter. Sir Walter 
Scott, when he wrote true humor was truer than 
Macaulay. Take King James of Scotland. He had 
never stepped upon English soil. He could not speak 
the English language. He spoke a sweet Scotch 
dialect. But when Macaulay makes King James 
speak, he puts in his mouth the pure English of Addi- 
son and Dr. Johnson. He deceives us to add dignity 
to his history. Not so with Sir Walter Scott. When 
he describes King James in "Ivanhoe" he puts nature's 
dialect in his mouth — that sweet Scotch dialect ; and 
Sir Walter Scott is truer than Macaulay. 

Again, take the death-bed of Webster. Bancroft 
says the great orator "raised himself on his pillow, and 
for an instant the old time fires gleamed from his eagle 
eyes as he exclaimed, T still live !' and sinking back, 
was dead." 

This sounds pretty, and it is the way the dignified 
historian has to treat the scene. The humorist would 
have more truth and less dignity. The humorist would 
describe the scene as Webster's nurse, who saw him die 
at Marshfield, described it to me: 

"Webster," he said, "lay on his bed so quiet that it 
seemed as if he had passed away. As the physician 
entered the room he glanced at the reclining figure and 
repeated half to himself; 



84 ELI PERKINS— THIRTY YEARS OF WIT. 

" 'Guess he's gone now !' 

' 'Not yet,' said Webster, 'gimme the brandy,' and, 
after he drank it, he lay motionless ; then a long sigh, 
and he never spoke again." 

Bancroft had to change this so as to make it heroic, 
but not truthful. 

The most humorous thing the "Danbury News 
Man" ever wrote was that account of putting up a 
stovepipe, and that actually occurred. The Danbury 
News Man and his wife were going to church one day, 
and the stovepipe fell down. He called his wife back 
to help him put it up ; but she was a very religious 
woman, and went on to church and left him to put up 
that stovepipe alone. He put up that stovepipe. 
That stovepipe did everything that any stovepipe could 
do. It didn't go out of the room. I had a stovepipe 
once that got out the back door, went clear around the 
block twice, and came back and got on to the wrong 
stove. Well, after he got the stovepipe put up, he sat 
down and wrote a faithful account of it, and you enjoy 
reading it. You say, "That is so true ! That man's put 
up a stovepipe — he's been there !" 

Now, if the writer had wanted to add wit to his hu- 
mor, he would only have had to add imagination. In his 
mind's eye he could have put two joints on the stove- 
pipe, and the soot could have poured right out of one 
joint down his shirt collar, and he could have shaken 
it out of the bottom of his trowsers; and the other 
joint could have slipped right over his head and taken 
off one of his ears. But that would have been a lie, for 
the stovepipe was No. 6 and his head was No. 7. 

Another of the humorous creations of the Danbury 
JVews Man are his description of cording the bedstead, 



NEW PHILOSOPHY OF WIT AND HUMOR. 85 

and Mrs. Munson "shooing" the hen. We can see 
Mrs. Munson now. Her husband, the old farmer, had 
been at work all the morning with two hired men and 
three dogs trying to drive the hens into the coop. 
Mrs. Munson looked up from her churning, saw the 
situation, and screamed : 

"John! I'll 'shoo' those hens!" 

Then she goes out — gets her eyes on the hens — holds 
up her dress from both sides — just surrounds the hens — 
then drops her whole body as she says: 

"Sh !" 

That settled the hen ! 

Among American writers C. B. Lewis (M. Quad) and 
the Danbury News Man are pure humorists. Their 
characters are all real. Old Bijah really lived in the 
Court House at Detroit. Yes, Brother Gardner once 
lived in the flesh, and the Lime-Kiln Club was. Mr. 
Lewis gave Brother Gardner's dialect so true to life in 
those Lime-Kiln Club sermons that many people be- 
lieved the club actually existed. In fact, the humorist 
showed me three letters, recently received from three 
members of the Kansas Farmers' Alliance, who wanted 
to come to Detroit and join that club ! Mr. Lewis has 
now moved the club over to Thompson Street, New 
York, and we expect to hear of the old Staten Island 
farmers coming up to the World office to inquire the 
way to Brother Gardner's church ! 

I asked Mr. Lewis one day what was the most hu- 
morous thing he had seen lately. 

"I would be ashamed to tell you," he said. "It was 
such a little thing — but so true!" 

"What was it?" 

"Well, a man came into the house, rushed up to his 



86 ELI PERKINS— THIRTY YEARS OF WIT. 

wife, and said, 'My dear wife, I've just done the smart- 
est thing I ever did in my life.' 

; 'Why, George,' said his wife, 'what did you do? 
What did you do?' 

' 'Why' (looking down at his trowsers), 'I rolled up 
my trowsers this morning before they got muddy.' 
"It was such a little thing, but so true/" 

What of Mark Twain? 

Well, Mark is both a humorist and a wit. His descrip- 
tions in "Roughing it" and "Innocents Abroad" are 
generally humorous. He uses the dialects truthfully, 
and his characters are natural. Then, all at once, he will 
run the reader plump up against the tomb of Adam or 
the bust of Columbus, where he convulses you with the 
wildest wit, the craziest of imagination. Tom Sawyer 
whitewashing the fence was a case of perfect humor, 
perfect truth — so natural ! 

Mark Twain's "Huckleberry Finn" is the truest and 
best thing he ever wrote. When Raymond Blathwait 
asked Mr. Twain about "Huckleberry Finn," he said: 

"The only one of my own books that I can ever read 
with pleasure is the one you are good enough to say is 
your favorite, 'Huck Finn,' and partly because I know 
the dialect is true and good. I didn't know I could 
read even that till I read it aloud last summer to one of 
my little ones who was sick." 

"How do you define wit?" was asked Mr. Twain. 

"Wit is the legitimate child of contrast. Therefore, 
when you shall have found the very gravest people, 
and the most lighthearted people in the world, you 
shall also be able to say without further inquiry, T have 
found the garden of wit, the very paradise of wit. You 



NEW PHILOSOPHY OF WIT AND HUMOR. 87 

may not know it, but it is true, if a man is at a funeral 
and brokenhearted, he is quite likely to be persecuted 
with humorous thoughts. These thoughts are funny 
by contrast. Now, to illustrate, here is a story: "A 
clergyman in New York was requested by a man to 
come over to Brooklyn to officiate at his wife's funeral. 
The clergyman assented, only stipulating that there 
must be no delay, as he had an important engagement 
the same day. At the appointed hour they all met in 
the parlor, and the room was crowded with mourning 
people; no sounds but those of sighs and sobbings. 
The clergyman stood up over the coffin and began to 
read the service, when he felt a tug at his coat-tails, 
and bending down he heard the widower whisper in his 
ear: 

" 'We ain't ready yet.' 

"Rather awkwardly he sat down in a dead silence. 
Rose again and the same thing took place. A third 
time he rose and the same thing occurred. 

' 'But what is the delay?' he whispered back. 'Why 
are you not ready?' 

' 'She ain't all here yet,' was the very ghastly and 
unexpected reply; 'her stomach's at the apothecary's.' 

"You see," continued Mr. Twain, "it is the horizon- 
wide contrast between the deep solemnity on the one 
hand and that triviality on the other which makes a 
thing funny which could not otherwise be so. But in 
all cases, in occurrences such as that I have just de- 
scribed, it is solemn and grave, culminating in the 
ridiculous." 

I think the best story about Mark Twain was his 
answer when they appealed to him to settle a religious 
controversy. They had been discussing about eternal 



o» ELI PERKINS— THIRTY YEARS OF WIT. 

life and future punishment for the wicked. Is or is 
not there a hell or heaven, and where will the wicked 
go? A lady finally appealed to Mr. Twain and asked 
him what he thought about hell or heaven? 

"I do not want to express an opinion," said Mr 
Twain gravely. "It is policy for me to remain silent. 
I have friends in both places." 

A serious love quarrel would be humor if described 
truthfully. 

How many times we have all witnessed the little 
quarrels of loving brides and grooms. Picture to your- 
selves a young married couple fixing up their first home : 

"How glad I am, dearie, that our tastes are so very 
similar," said young Mrs. Honeylip to her husband 
when they had returned from their bridal tour and were 
furnishing the flat in which they were to be "so per- 
fectly happy." 

"We agree about everything, don't we, darling?" 
she continued. "We both wanted cardinal and gray 
to be the prevailing tones in the parlor ; we agreed ex- 
actly about the blue room, and both wanted oak for 
the dining-room and hall. We like the same kind of 
chairs. Oh, we agree exactly, don't we? and how nice 
it is. I'd feel dreadful if we didn't agree, particularly 
about any important thing." 

"So would I, darling," he said. "It's lovely to live 
in such perfect harmony. Now, I guess I'll hang this 
lovely little water-color your aunt gave us right over 
this cabinet, shan't I?" 

"I don't hardly know, my dear. Wouldn't it look 
better over that bracket on the opposite wall?" 

"I hardly think so, love; the light is so much better 
here." 



NEW PHILOSOPHY OF WIT AND HUMOR. 89 

"Do you think so, George? Really, now, I don't like 
it in that light. " 

"You don't? Why, it's just the light for it. It's en- 
tirely too dark for a water-color on the other wall." 

"I don't think so at all. Water-colors don't want a 
great deal of light." 

"They certainly don't want to be in the shade." 

"They certainly don't want to hang in a perfect glare 
of light." 

"I guess I've hung pictures before to-day, and " 

"Oh, George, how cross you are !" 

"I'm no crosser than you, and — ■ — " 

"You are, too, and I — I — oh, how can you be so cruel?" 

"Pshaw, Helen, I only said " 

"Oh, I know, and it has broken my heart." 

"There, there, dear " 

"Oh, it has! I — I — George, do you really want me 
to go back to mamma and papa?" 

"Why, darling, you know " 

"Be-be-cause, boo, hoo ! if you d-d-o, boo, hoo ! I 
will. It would be better, boo, hoo ! than for us to 
quarrel so over everything, and " 

"There, there, my dear, I " 

"Mamma was afraid we were too unlike in disposition 
to get along well, but I — I — oh, George, this is too per- 
fectly dreadful!" 

I have known a kind of half sad humor where two 
earnest people misconstrue each other's thoughts. I 
once heard of a dialogue between a sweet, dear old 
clergyman in Arkansas and an illiterate parishioner, 
which illustrates this idea. 

"Your children have all turned out well, I reckon," 
said the clergyman as he sat down to dinner with the 



9° ELI PERKIXS— THIRTY YEARS OF WIT. 

parishioner he had not seen in church for several 
years. 

'"Well yes. all but Bill, pore feller." 

"Drunk licker, I reckon," said the clergyman sor- 
rowfully. 

"Oh, no. never drunk no licker, but hain't amounted 
to nothin". Bill was deceived, an it ruint him." 

"Love affair? Married out of the church, may be?" 

"Yes, an' a mighty bad love affair." 

"She deceived him, eh?" 

"Terribly! terribly." 

"Ruined his spiritual life and he married a scoffer?" 

"Oh, no, she married him; married him? I guess 
she did !" 

"But, confidentially, what was the cause of your son's 
grief and ruin?" 

"Well, you see, Brother Munson, she was a widder, 
an' let on she wuz well off, but she wan't. W'y she 
wan't able to get Bill a decent suit o' clothes the week 
airter they wuz married. Poor Bill has gone ragged 
ever since the weddin'. Poor boy, he's lost all confi- 
dence in wimmen, Bill has." 

Humor is sometimes very sad — almost pathos: but 
you enjoy this pathos as much as you do humor. En- 
joy pathos; you say? See me prove it! How many 
times you have seen a sentimental young lady reading 
a pathetic love story. She would read and cry — read 
and cry — the villain still pursued her! She enjoyed 
that pathos. If she didn't she'd throw that book 
away — only ten cents worth of book, but she wanted 
a dollar's worth of cry ! 

I saw an old slave woman die on a Louisiana planta- 
tion after the war. A truthful description of that 
-cene would be humor and pathos blended. 



NEW PHILOSOPHY OF WIT AND HUMOR. 91 

Read this description to some old Southern mother 
on any old plantation in the South, and see joy in her 
face and her eyes suffused in tears. 

"Doctor, is I got to go?" asked the venerable Chris- 
tian, as her eyes filled with tears of joy. 

"Aunt 'Liza, there is no hope for you." 

"Bress de Great Master for his goodness. Ise 
ready." 

The doctor gave a few directions to the colored 
women that sat around 'Liza's bed, and started to leave, 
when he was recalled by the old woman, who was drift- 
ing out with the tide: 

"Marse John, stay wid me till it's ober. I wants to 
talk ob de old times. I knowed you when a boy long 
'fore you went and been a doctor. I called you Marse 
John den ; I call you de same now. Take yo' ole mam- 
my's hand, honey, and hold it. Ise lived a long, long 
time. Ole marster and ole missus hab gone before, 
and the chillun from de ole place is scattered ober de 
world. I'd like to see 'em 'fore I starts on de journey 
to-night. My ole man's gone, and all the chillun I 
nussed at dis breast has gone too. Dey's waitin' 
for dere mudder on de golden shore. I bress de 
Lord, Marse John, for takin' me to meet 'em dar. 
Ise fought de good fight, and Ise not afraid to meet 
de Saviour. No mo' wo'k for poor ole mammy, no mo' 
trials and tribulations — hold my hand tighter, Marse 
John — fadder — mudder — marster — missus — chillun — 
Ise gwine home." 

The soul, while pluming its wings for its flight to the 
Great Beyond, rested on the dusky face of the sleeper, 
and the watchers with bowed heads wept silently. 

She was dead. 



WILD WEST EXAGGERATIONS. 



The Wit of Exaggeration — Wonderful Fishing and Hunting Stories — 
The Lying Tournament of the Press Club — W T estern Imagination — 
Wild Bill, Bill Nye, and Eli Compete. 

I HAVE always found the greatest exaggerators in 
the West. They live where the mountains are high 
and the prairies are broad. Their imaginations are 
affected by great distances and great heights. That is 
the reason all the great stories which astonish the 
East come in from Colorado or Wyoming. The 
imagination of the city man who looks up against a 
brick wall is dwarfed, but when we stand on the broad 
plains of Kansas and look a hundred miles and see 
Pike's Peak rearing her snowy dome into the azure 
skies, why our stories smack of the distance. Then in 
the West thought is free, and they are not troubled 
with these compunctions of conscience. In the East 
here many of us are so good — so good ! — that if we get 
hold of an exaggerated joke we go right out back side 
of the orchard, get right down in the corner of the 
fence and giggle — all to ourselves. That's the meanest 
kind of close communionism. But in the West, if a 
man discovers a good joke, he wants to get on the 
mountain top and proclaim his good tidings of great 
joy to all the world. So go West to find imagina- 
tion : go to the prairies or the mountains, go to Kan- 
sas or Nebraska; that's where exaggeration lives, that's 

92 



WILD WEST EXAGGERATIONS. 93 

where it stays. Let exaggeration get away from Kan- 
sas, and, if there isn't a string tied to it it will go right 
back there again — so natural ! 

Yes, I've met some of our grandest imaginers in 
prairie schooners, — tattered and torn and ragged, roam- 
ing through the nation's public land, away from civ- 
ilization, and where no man had seen the rivers or 
walked on that virgin soil before. 

One day, out in Sioux County, the extreme north- 
western county of Nebraska, I met one of these pro- 
fessional homesteaders. He stood by a prairie schooner, 
out of which came a stovepipe. Behind was a cow 
and calf and two dogs. 

" Where is your home?" I asked. 

"H'n't got no house," he said, as he kicked one of 
the dogs and took a chew of tobacco. 

"Where do you live?" 

"Where d' I live!" he exclaimed, with the grandeur 
of a king. "Where d' I live? I don't have to live any- 
where. I'm marchin' ahed of civ'lization, sir. I'm 
homesteadin'." 

"Well, where do you sleep?" 

"Sleep? I sleep over on the government land, 
drink out of the North Platte, eat jack rabbits and raw 
wolf. But it's gettin' too thickly settled round here 
for me. I saw a land agent up at Buffalo Gap to-day, 
and they say a whole family is comin' up the North 
Platte fifty miles below here. It's gettin' too crowded 
for me here, stranger. I leave for the Powder River 
country to-morrow. I can't stand the rush!" 

Again, I was out in Kansas City after that great 
cyclone they had there three years ago. Terrible 
cyclone J A third of Kansas City blown away — three 



94 ELI PERKINS— THIRTY YEARS OF WIT. 

splendid churches went up with the rest. But they 
were all perfectly happy. You can't make those Kan- 
sas people feel bad since they've got prohibition. If 
they have grasshoppers out there now, they telegraph 
right over to New England, "Got grasshoppers! Got 
grasshoppers!!" And then they claim that their land 
is so rich that they raise two crops, grasshoppers and 
corn. 

Well, the next day after I got to Kansas City, I 
went up on the bluffs with Colonel Coates. He was 
going to show me where his house had stood the day 
before the cyclone. Not one brick left on another; 
trees blown out by the roots! 

Said I, "Colonel, you had a terrible cyclone here 
yesterday, didn't you?" 

"Well, there was a little d-r-a-f-t " 

"Well," said I, "Colonel, how hard did it blow here 
in Kansas City? Don't deceive me, now; how hard 
did it blow?" 

"Blow," he said, "why, it blew — it blew my cook 
stove — blew it away over — blew it seventeen miles, 
and the next day came back and got the griddles!" 

"Did it hurt anybody?" 

"Hurt anybody! Why, there were some of those 
Farmers' Alliance members of the legislature over here 
looking around with their mouths open. We told 'em 
they'd better keep their mouths closed during the 
hurricane, but they were careless — left their mouths 
open, and the wind caught 'em in the mouth and 
turned 'em inside out!" 

"Did it kill them?" I asked eagerly. 

"No," said the colonel, wiping his eyes, "it didn't 
kill 'em, but they were a good deal discouraged, 



WILD WEST EXAGGERATIONS. 95 

"Why," he continued enthusiastically, "it blew some 
of those Farmers' Alliance men — blew 'em right up 
against a stone wall and flattened 'em out as flat as 
pancakes — and " 

"Why, what did you do with them?" I asked. 

"Do with them ! Why, we went out the next day — 
scraped them farmers of! — scraped off several barrels 
full of 'em — and sent them over to New England and 
sold them for liver pads!" 

Out in Dakota they have imaginations as elastic as 
their climate: "One day," said Elder Russell, "it is a 
blizzard from Winnipeg, and the next day it is a hot 
simoon from Texas. Sometimes the weather changes 
in a second. Now, one morning last spring, to illus- 
trate, Governor Pierce, of Bismarck, and I were snow- 
balling each other in the courtyard of the capitol. 
Losing my temper, for the governor had hit me pretty 
hard, I picked up a solid chunk of ice and threw it 
with all my might at his excellency, who was standing 
fifty feet away." 

"Did it hurt him?" I asked. 

"Yes," said the clergyman regretfully, "it did hurt 
him, and I'm sorry I did it now, but it was unin- 
tentional. You see, as the chunk of ice left my hand, 
there came one of those wonderful climatic changes 
incident to Dakota; the mercury took an upward turn, 
the ice melted in transit, and the hot water scalded 
poor Governor Pierce all over the back of his neck." 

I have heard a good deal of exaggeration among 
our newspaper men. The smart reporter is boiling over 
with ideas which he cannot hold within the narrow 
boundaries of truth. 

But the reporter tries to be truthful. All the best 



9 6 ELI PERKINS— THIRTY YEARS OF WIT. 

humor we have comes from the pen of the conscientious 
reporter who describes little true things close to life. 
Dickens was a reporter, and the stories of "Little Dor- 
rit," and "Dick Swiveller," and "David Copperfield" 
were little true descriptions of reaL characters which he 
had met in his reportorial career. 

Uncle John Wood, the father of the New York 
Press Club, and who used to run his blue pencil through 
the first articles I ever wrote, told me about an enter- 
prising and truthful reporter in Chicago. 

"A Chicago reporter," said Uncle John, "was detailed 
to write up a case of dissection of a drowned young 
lady in the medical college. He was very ambitious 
and went to his work early in the day — hours before 
the dissection took place. Before the doctors as- 
sembled, he saw the corpse, with several others, laying 
on the table. To kill time, before the doctors arrived, 
he commenced writing a description of the room and a 
description of the corpse. All at once he was startled 
to see one of the corpses on a side table move. Then 
he heard a rustling. Then the corpse sat up and 
spoke ! 

" 'Who are you?' asked the corpse, pointing his finger 
at the reporter. 

1 Tm a reporter on the morning News. I'm Eugene 
Field. I've been sent here to describe the dissection 
of the drowned girl.' 

' 'What are you writing about now?' 

" T'm describing the appearance of the room and 
the beautiful corpse/ 

' 'Oh, pshaw, young man, you're too late for that. 
I sent that in to the Tribune yesterday. I've been 
laying here two days.' " 



WILD WEST EXAGGERATIONS. 97 

Can newspaper men exaggerate? 

Sometimes, if the fee is commensurate with the 
imagination required. 

One night, after I had made a little speech at a 
dinner given by the New York Press Club to General 
Felix Angus of the Baltimore American, the boys got 
to telling exaggerated stories about mean men. 

"Talking about mean men," said Colonel Cockerill, 
"I know a man on Lexington Avenue who was the 
meanest man in New York." 

"How mean is that?" 1 asked: 

"Why, Eli," he said, "he is so mean that he keeps 
a five cent piece with a string tied to it to give to 
beggars; and when their backs are turned, he jerks it 
out of their pockets! 

"Why, this man is so confounded mean," continued 
the gentleman, "that he gave his children ten cents 
apiece every night for going to bed without their 
supper, but during the night, when they were asleep, 
he went upstairs, took the money out of their clothes, 
and then whipped them in the morning for losing it !" 

"Does he do anything else?" 

"Yes, the other day I dined with him, and I noticed 
the poor little servant-girl whistled all the way upstairs 
with the dessert — and when I asked the mean old 
scamp what made her whistle so happily, he said : 

"'Why, I keep her whistling so she can't eat the 
raisins out of the cake.' " 

"But," I said, " I knew a meaner man than that up 
in central New York." 

"Well, now, hear that!" they all said. "But how 
mean was he?" 

"Why, his name was Deacon Munson, and his 



98 ELI PERKINS— THIRTY YEARS OF WIT. 

neighbors said he was so mean that he used to stop 
his clock nights — to keep the gearing from wearing 
out." 

"Oh, come off!" 

"I didn't see this, gentlemen," I continued, "but the 
neighbors said the deacon kept a dairy, and after 
skimming his milk on top, he used to walk up and 
down the street, and if no one was looking, he would 
turn it over and skim it on the bottom. But that 
wasn't dishonest. It was only frugal. He had a per- 
fect right to skim it on the sides — on the end — 
an " 

"Oh, now Eli !" interrupted several voices. 

"Fact," I said, ''honest fact; but there was one 
frugal thing the deacon did that I have never yet 
mentioned. He was very close about domestic 
matters — about the cooking. Didn't want anything 
wasted ; and he used to go over to the butcher's shop 
every Saturday night, take off his old slouch hat, full 
of something or other, and ask the butcher if he 
wouldn't please restuff — them — sausage skins?" 

I looked around for a response, but the Press Club 
was gone. 

One solitary man remained. He was an old miner 
from Idaho, who had come as a guest. 

"Such Sunday-school stories as you New Yorkers 
have just told," he said, "don't startle an old Idaho 
miner at all; and for the credit of my State I want to 
present her claims for meanness before I go." 

"What, Idaho people mean?" I said. 

"The most selfish people on earth, sir. I'm an 
Idaho man myself." 

"How mean are they?" 



WILD WEST EXAGGERATIOXS. 99 

"Well, take my case. I run a 'wildcat' under a 
schoolhouse in Boise City, and struck a rich mine, and 
yet they were so mean that they wouldn't let me do 
any blasting during school hours for fear of disturbing 
the children. I had to work at nights altogether, and 
they even charged me thirty cents for breaking the 
windows." 

"Indeed !" 

"And in another case, three Idaho men jumped a 
fellow's claim before I could get there, and they 
wouldn't let me join 'em. D'you know what I had to 
do? Why, I dug a canal from the river three* miles 
away and let the water in and druv them jumpers 
out, and then the coroner who sat on the bodies made 
me pay for the coffins, and charged me $12 for a funeral 
sermon of seven minutes long! No, sir; don't you 
never go beyond Colorado if you want fair treat- 
ment." 

They were talking one night down at the Press Club 
about " presence of mind," when Major Bundy, of 
the Mail and Express, said : 

"Why, one day Amos J. Cummings was sitting at 
his desk in the Sun office writing up one of his imagin- 
ary clambakes, when a stroke of lightning descended 
through the roof, stripped him of his clothing, even to 
his boots, then threw him down on to the bronze 
statue of Franklin and left him paralyzed and unable 
to move a muscle. 

"Oh!" exclaimed Joseph Howard, "and poor Amos 
was killed?" 

"No, sir. Mr. Cummings retained complete— G041- 
sciousness through it all, and being on the spot was 
enabled to write up a veracious account of the affair. 



IOO ELI PERKINS— THIRTY YEARS OF WIT. 

He has fully recovered and is now a member of con- 
gress, in good standing." 

Again, you will see imagination among the sailors 
as you sail down the long rivers or up to the Arctic 
Seas or around Cape Horn. Sailors' yarns extend 
around the world. It is the imagination of the sailor 
which creates the sea serpent and the imaginative ter 
rors of Scylla and Charybdis, which are as much a myth 
as the mountaineer's creation of William Tell. 

You see the imagination among the owners of 
swift horses. The race tracks and long races of 
fast horses help imagination in Kentucky. Let a 
Kentuckian get hold of a new joke, and he just 
leaps on to a thoroughbred horse and flies for his 
neighbors. If a horse ever got lame around Lexington 
his master lamed him getting there early with a new 
joke, and no mean man does that. Oh, the man that 
rides up in front of your house a cold, stormy day, 
beckons to you, and you come shivering down to the 
gate, and he tells you a joke that makes you laugh, ha! 
ha! and you go back into the house and put your arms 
around your wife's neck and kiss her — no mean man 
does that ! 

Now, I was down in Kentucky last spring, during 
the overflow on the Ohio, and I went across the Ohio 
to Cairo — Cairo on the Ohio River — and sometimes 
under it. It was a great deluge. But the women 
were all perfectly happy. If there is anything that a 
woman loves — utterly loves — it is to have plenty of 
nice, wet water to wash, and as the water had 
been pouring down the chimneys for the last week 
faster than it could run out of the front door, they 
were perfectly happy. But the next day after I got 






WILD WE S T EX A GGERA TIONS. I o I 

there, the river went down and the streets were very 
muddy. I met a Kentucky clergyman there who told 
me about the mud. 

"You ought to see the mud over in Levy Street," 
he said ; "mud ! mud ! mud ! Why, I was riding over 
there in my carriage this morning, and I jumped off 
and went into the mud clear to my ankles." 

"Why," said I, "that wasn't very deep." 

"Well," he said, "I jumped head first. 

"But you ought to go over on Water Street, there's 
mud for you ! Why, I was walking along on Water 
Street — walking along carefully (they all walk carefully 
in Cairo — buckshot land), walking along carefully right 
in the middle of the street, when I saw a stovepipe 
hat. I ran up to it and kicked it, and hit a man right 
in the ear. 

'"What are you doing here?' I asked; 'what are you 
doing here?' 

1 'Keep still, keep still, keep still!' he said. 'I'm 
sitting in a load of hay.' " 

After lecturing at Deadwood I went over to the Red 
Cloud Agency with the Quaker Indian Commissioners. 
Wild Bill, the famous hunter and Indian scout, was in 
the party. On the trip the conversation started about 
famous rain storms; and Wild Bill had been giving his 
experience to General Miles. 

A little while afterward a Quaker clergyman, who 
was seeking after reliable information for his govern- 
ment report, came up to Bill and said : 

"Let me see, what was that story thee was narrating 
about storms to General Miles?" 

"Well," said Wild Bill, as he winked one eye at the 
general and looked down the muzzle of his pistol to 



IO ( 2 ELI PERKINS— THIRTY YEARS OF WIT. 

see if it was loaded, "I was tellin' the ginral how I seen 
clouds makin' to the north'ard and I knowed it was 
going to settle in for thick weather round Deadwood. 
I told my son to look out, and in less than half an 
hour there broke the doggondist storm I ever seed. 
Rain ! Why, gen'lemen, it rained so hard into the 
muzzle of my gun that it busted the darned thing at 
the breech ! Yes, sir. And the water began to rise 
on us, too. Talk about your floods down South ! 
Why, gen'lemen, the water rose so rapidly in my 
house that it flowed up the chimney and streamed 300 
feet up in the air ! We got it both ways that trip, up 
and down !" 

"Do we understand thee is relating facts within the 
scope of thine own experience?" demanded the clergy- 
man, with his mouth wide open. 

"Partially mine and partially my son's," answered 
the truthful Bill. "He watched it go up, and I 
watched it come down ! But you can get some idea 
of how it rained when I tell you that we put out a 
barrel without any heads into it, and it rained into the 
bunghole of the barrel faster than it could run out at 
both ends!" 

"Which of you saw this, thee or thy son?" inquired 
the clergyman. 

"We each watched it together, my son and me," re- 
turned Wild Bill, "till my son got too near the barrel 
and was drowned. Excuse these tears, gen'lemen, but 
I can never tell about that storm without crying." 

"Verily the truth is sometimes stranger than fiction," 
said the clergyman. "Verily it is." 

That night, after we got back to General Miles's 
camp, several of the old scouts who heard Wild Bill's 



WILD WEST EXAGGERATIONS. 103 

success with the Quaker Indian Commissioners began 
telling storm stories. 

"Talking about winds, heavy winds," said Sandy 
McGuire, "why, I saw a man in Cheyenne sitting 
quietly on his doorstep eating a piece of pie. Suddenly, 
before he could get into the house, the wind struck 
him. The gale first blew the house down, and then 
seized the man, carried him through the air a hundred 
yards or so, and landed him in a peach tree. Soon after- 
ward a friendly board from his own house came floating 
by. This he seized and placed over his head to protect 
himself from the raging blast, and — finished his pie." 

"That was a windy day for that part of Wyoming, I 
presume," said Mr. Wm. Nye, of Laramie; "but that 
would not compare with one of our Laramie zephyrs. 
Why, gentlemen, out in Laramie, during one of our 
ordinary gales, I've seen bowlders big as pumpkins fly- 
ing through the air. Once, when the wind was blow- 
ing gravestones around, and ripping water pipes out of 
the ground, an old Chinaman with spectacles on his 
nose was observed in the eastern part of the town 
seated on a knoll, calmly flying his kite — an iron shutter 
with a log-chain for a tail." 

"Yes," said a young Harvard graduate, who had 
just come from Dakota, "they do have quite windy 
weather out in Wyoming, but if you want to see real 
wind you must see a Dakota blizzard. They are very 
remarkable. One day as I was passing a hotel in 
Bismarck the cap flew from one of the chimneys. It 
was a circular piece of sheet iron, painted black, slightly 
convex, and the four supports were like legs. The 
wind carried it down street, and it went straddling 
along like a living thing." 



104 ELI PERKINS— THIRTY YEARS OF WIT. 

"Well, what was it?" asked Wild Bill. 

"Why, it turned out to be a cockroach from the 
hotel, and, by George ! I never saw anything like it," 
then he added — "outside of Boston." 

"They used to say out in Kansas," said Sandy Mc- 
Guire, "that wind would blow grasshoppers away. I 
guess not. I saw a Kansas grasshopper face a hurri- 
cane the other day for seven hours, and then yanked 
a shingle off the house and commenced fanning him- 
self, saying it was awful sultry." 

Now and then we meet hunters and fishers in New 
England who can tell a fair story. Such a man was 
old Nat Willey, who lived up in the White Mountains 
near the Conway House. One evening there were a 
group of guests sitting around the blazing logs of the 
Conway House. There were several Kentuckians, a 
Colorado man, and Old Nat. They had all told stories 
of long shots, but Old Nat kept perfectly quiet. A 
Kentuckian told about his father, who was a pioneer 
with Daniel Boone, and how he had killed a deer at a 
distance of two miles! 

Then there was a long silence, which was broken by 
Charley Head, who said to Old Nat : 

"Look here, Uncle Nat, how about that rifle that 
General Knox gave you. That could shoot some, 
couldn't it?" 

"You mean the one I had to fire salted balls from?" 

"Yes, tell us about it." 

"Pshaw! It don't matter. Let the old piece rest 
in its glory." 

And modest Old Nat would have sat back out of 
the way, but the story-tellers had become suddenly 
interested, 



WILD WEST EXAGGERATIONS. 105 

"Let us hear about it," pleaded the gentleman 
whose father had been a compatriot with Daniel 
Boone. "Did I understand you that you salted your 
bullets?" 

"Always," said Nat, seriously and emphatically. 

"And what for, pray?" 

"Because," answered the old mountaineer, with 
simple honesty in look and tone, "that rifle killed at 
such a distance that, otherwise, especially in warm 
weather, game would spoil ivith age before I could reach 

ur 



SATIRE KILLS ERROR. 



The Great Satirists, Cervantes, Dean Swift, Juvenal, Nasby — Christ uses 
Satire to Kill Error — Satirizing the Jury System — Satirizing Blus- 
tering Lawyers — Satirizing Society and the Dude — Satirizing the 
Agnostic — Satirizing Huxley, Herbert Spencer, and Ingersoll — - 
Satire in Politics brings Letters from Blaine and President Harrison. 

AFTER discovering the difference between wit and 
humor, and after describing and illustrating this 
difference so plainly that a schoolboy can see it, I 
turn my thought toward satire and ridicule. I find 
satire and ridicule are species of the genus wit. 
Neither are true. Both are exaggerations. Satire is 
to kill error and ridicule is to kill truth. The satirist 
and ridiculer deal in the imagination. The satirist ex- 
aggerates an error, makes it hideous, and you indig- 
nantly stamp it out. The ridiculer exaggerates a 
truth, makes it grotesque, and you laugh it out. 

Satire is one of the strongest weapons we have. 
The Satires of Juvenal changed the politics of Rome, 
Dean Swift changed the political aspect of England 
with his "Tale of a Tub," Cervantes broke up the 
awful custom of knight-errantry in Spain with his 
"Don Quixote," and Nasby, with his cross-road letters, 
did more for the Union during the last war than a 
brigade of soldiers. 

I say Nasby was a satirist. He always called him- 
self a satirist — not a humorist. He never tried to 
produce laughter. His aim was to convince people of 

i<?6 



SA TIRE KILL S ERR OR. 107 

error, by exaggerating that error so that they could 
see it. His mission was to exaggerate error, or over- 
state it and make it hideous. So Nasby never told a 
truth in his life — in the newspapers. Of course he has 
told private truths at home — to his wife. Even the 
date of every letter Nasby ever wrote began with an 
exaggeration. There is no such place as the "Con- 
federate cross-roads" in Kentucky; no "Deacon Po- 
gram" — all an exaggeration! 

Nasby created red-nosed Deacon Pogram, placed 
him in the Kentucky cross-road saloon, filled him 
with bourbon whisky, slavery, and secession ; made him 
abuse the "nigger" and the Republican party, and 
defend slavery. He made the secessionist odious, and 
did more with his satire to kill slavery and rebellion 
than Wendell Phillips did with his denunciation. 

To illustrate how Nasby exploded the pro-slavery 
error of disfranchising black citizens of the republic, 
I give this satirical incident as the great satirist gave it 
to me: 

"One day," said Nasby, "a poor ignorant white man 
came to the polls in Georgia to vote. 

' 'I wish you would oblige me by voting this ticket,' 
said a bright mulatto, who was standing near the polls. 

' 'What kind of ticket is it?' asked the poor white 
man. 

"'Why,' said the mulatto, 'you can see for yourself.' 

" 'But I can't read.' 

"'What! can't you read the ballot you have there in 
your hand, which you are about to vote?' exclaimed 
the colored man. 

' 'No,' said he, T can't read at all.' 

' 'Well,' said the colored man, 'this ballot means that 



108 ELI PERKINS— THIRTY YEARS OF WIT. 

you are in favor of the fifteenth amendment giving 
equal franchise to both white and colored citizens.' 
' 'It means to let the nigger vote, does it?' 

" 'Yes, sir.' 

' 'Then I don't want it. Niggers dorit know enough 
to vote!' " 

It was thus that Thackeray satirized snobs and 
snobbery out of England, and it was this same weapon, 
satire, that Juvenal used to shame the rotten aristocracy 
of Rome. You can kill more error with exaggera- 
tion in a week than you can kill with truth in a thou- 
sand years. 

How long had they been trying to break up that 
awful error of knight-errantry in Spain. They couldn't 
do it. They flung arguments at it ; the arguments fell 
to the ground, and the error of knight-errantry went 
on. One day Cervantes, that great Spanish satirist, 
wrote "Don Quixote" — a pure exaggeration. No Don 
Quixote ever existed, no Sancho Panza. It was knight- 
errantry exaggerated, and the people saw the crime 
and ground it under their feet. 

Satire is used all through the Bible to kill error. 
Job used it, and so did Elijah and our Saviour. What 
cutting satire did our Saviour use to call the attention 
of the Jews to their crimes. Don't you remember, 
when the Jews were washing their hands before and 
after every meal,' — little one-cent observances, while 
great crimes went creeping into Judea, — Christ wanted 
to call their attention to their crimes? He used satire. 
With what dreadful satire he exclaimed : 

"Ye are blind leaders of the blind. Ye strain at a 
gnat and swallow a camel!" 

Our Saviour didn't mean to say these Jews could 



SA TIRE KILLS ERROR. 109 

literally swallow a camel — he knew they'd try, but 
they couldn't do it ! 

If I wanted to draw the attention of the public to the 
humbuggery of the present high opera music in the 
churches, I would exaggerate the singing of a hymn a 
little, and the people would see the absurdity of it. 
Thus: 

We have everything high in our church now. We 
have hi-church, hi-opera, hi-bonnets, and hi-heels, and 
hi-pocracy. This is the way we sing our hymns : 

When ther moo-hoon is mi-hild-ly be-heaming 

O'er the ca-halm and si-hi-lent se-e-e-e-a ; 
Its ra-dyunce so-hoftly stre-heam-ing, 
Oh ! ther-hen; oh, ther-hen, 

I thee-hink of thee, O Lord ! 

Hof thee-hee. 

I thee-hink, 

I thee-hink, 

I thee-hink, 
I thee-he-he-hehehehe-hink hof thee-e-e-e-e ! O Lord ! 

My friend Lewis, our most prolific humorist, tells a lit- 
tle satirical story about the Foreign Benevolent Society 
which was established in Chicago by a party of women 
not noted for attending to domestic matters at home. 
They had just organized the society and came to Mr. 
Jonathan Rigdon, a matter-of-fact business man, for a 
donation of a few dollars as a foundation to commence 
the benevolent work in Ethiopia. 

"Yes, Mr. Rigdon," began Mrs. Graham, the presi- 
dentess, "it would be so pleasant in after years for 
you to remember that you gave this society its first 
dollar and its first kind word." 

The shrewd old business man slowly opened his 



no ELI PERKINS— THIRTY YEARS OF WIT. 

wallet, drew out a ten-dollar bill, and as the ladies 
smacked their lips and clapped their hands, he asked : 

"Is this society organized to aid the poor of foreign 
countries?"' 

"Yes — yes — yes!" they chorused. 

"And it wants money?" 

"Yes — yes." 

"Well, now," said Rigdon, as he folded the bill in a 
tempting shape, "there are twenty married women 
here. If there are fifteen of you who can make oath 
that you have combed the children's hair this morning, 
washed the dishes, blackened the cook stove, and made 
the beds, I'll donate ten dollars." 

"I have," answered two of the crowd, and the rest 
said : 

"Why, now, Mr. Rigdon!" 

"If fifteen of you can make oath that your husbands 
are not wearing socks with holes in the heels, the money 
is yours," continued the wretch. 

"Just hear him !" they exclaimed, each one looking 
at the other. 

"If ten of you have boys without holes in the knees 
of their pants, this X goes to the society," said Rig- 
don. 

"Such a man !" they whispered. 

"If there are five pairs of stockings in this room that do 
not need darning, I'll hand over the money," he went on. 

"Jonathan Rigdon," said Mrs. Graham, with great 
dignity, as she sat down to cover up her stockings, 
"the rules of this society declare that no money shall be 
contributed except by members; and as you are not a 
member, I beg that you will withdraw and let us pro* 
ceed with the routine business." 



SA TIRE KILLS ERROR. I 1 1 

SATIRIZING THE JURYMAN. 

If I want to satirize the humbuggery of our jury sys- 
tem, I exaggerate a juryman's ignorance, and then the 
people see it. For example : A Chicago lawyer was 
visiting New York for the first time. Meeting a man 
on the crowded street, he said : 

"Here, my friend, I want you to tell me something 
about this city." 

"I don't know anything about it," said the hurrying 
business man, with a far-away look. 

"What street is this?" 

"I don't know," said the busy man, with his mind 
occupied, and staring at vacancy. 

"What city is it?" 

"Can't tell; I am busy." 

"Is it London or New York?" 

"Don't know anything about it." 

"You don't?" 

"No." 

"Well, by Heavens, sir, you are the very man I'm 
looking for. I've been looking for you for years." 

"What do you want me for?" 

"I want you to go to Chicago and sit on a jury." 

I repeated this colloquy about the juryman to Bret 
Harte once, and he asked if I had ever heard his story 
satirizing the early California jury. I had heard it, but 
not from the lips of the author of the "Luck of Roar- 
ing Camp." So I gladly let him tell it again. 

"It was over in the Mariposa Gulch in '50," began 
Mr. Harte. "They had never had a jury trial there. 
If a man stole a horse they lynched him, and that 
settled it. But the people, many of whom came from 



H2 ELI PERKINS— THIRTY YEARS OF WIT. 

Massachusetts, began to tire of lynch law and sigh for 
the good old Puritan jury trial of the East. So one 
day, when Bill Stevens had jumped a poor man's claim, 
the Massachusetts fellows resolved to give him a good 
old-fashioned jury trial. They took Bill into the back 
end of the board post-office, selected a jury, and the 
trial commenced." 

"How did it result?" I asked. 

"Well, dozens of witnesses were called, and finally 
the jury retired to agree upon a verdict. When they 
had been out about twenty minutes, and about con- 
cluded that Bill was innocent, the boys outside came 
banging at the door. 

' 'What do you fellows want?' asked the foreman 
through the keyhole. 

" 'We want to know if you hain't about agreed on the 
verdict. If you hain't you'll have to get out. We 
want this room to lay out the corpse in.' ' 

I once arranged a satire on the examination of jury- 
men when once impaneled. It was a real case, only a 
little exaggerated. 

The candidate for juryman wore No. 12 shoes, and 
a No. 6 hat, and the examination was like this: 

"Are you opposed to capital punishment?" asked the 
lawyer. 

"Oh, yes ; yes, sir." 

"If you were on a jury, then, where a man was being 
tried for his life, you wouldn't agree to a verdict to 
hang him?" 

"Yes, sir; yes, I would.*' 

"Have you formed or expressed an opinion as to the 
guilt or innocence of the accused?" 

"Yes, sir!" 



SA TLRE KILL S ERR OR. 1 1 3 

"Your mind, then, is made up?" 

"Oh, no ; no, it ain't." 

"Have you any bias for or against the prisoner?" 

"Yes, I think I have." 

"Are you prejudiced?" 

"Oh, no ; not a bit." 

"Have you ever heard of this case?'* 

"I think I have." 

"Would you decide, if on the jury, according to the 
evidence or mere rumor?" 

"Yes, sir." 

"Perhaps you don't understand. Would you decide 
according to evidence?" 

"Evidence." 

"If it was in your power to do so, would you change 
the law of capital punishment or let it stand?" 

"Let it stand." 

The Court : "Would you let it stand or change 
it?" 

"Change it." 

"Now, which would you do?" 

"Don't know, sir." 

"Are you a freeholder?" 

"Yes, sir; oh, yes." 

"Do you own a house and land, or rent?" 

"Neither; I'm a boarder." 

"Have you formed an opinion?" 

"No, sir." 

"Have you expressed an opinion?" 

"Think I have." 

The Court : "Gentlemen, I think the juror is com- 
petent. It is very evident he has never formed or ex- 
pressed an opinion on the subject." 



H4 ELI PERKINS— THIRTY YEARS OF WIT. 

SATIRIZING THE LAWYER. 

About six years ago the proprietors of the St. Jacob's 
Oil Almanac wrote to me and offered $i a line for a 
hundred line satire on the browbeating lawyer. Here 
is my dollar-a-line satire : 

"I used to have a strong contempt for lawyers. I 
thought their long cross-examinations were brainless 
dialogues for no purpose. But ever since Lawyer John- 
son had me as a witness in a wood case, I have had a 
better opinion of the lawyer's skill. In my direct testi- 
mony I had sworn truthfully that John Hall had cut 
ten cords of wood in three days. Then Johnson sharp- 
ened his pencil and commenced examining me. 

" 'Now, Mr. Perkins,' he began, 'how much wood do 
you say was cut by Mr. Hall?' 

" 'Just ten cords, sir,' I answered boldly. T meas- 
ured it.' 

" 'That's your impression?' 

" 'Yes, sir.' 

" 'Well, we don't want impressions, sir. What we 
want is facts before this jury — f-a-c-t-s, sir; facts!' 

" 'The witness will please state facts hereafter,' said 
the judge, while the crimson came to my face. 

" 'Now, sir,' continued Johnson, pointing his finger 
at me, 'will you swear that it was more than nine 
cords?' 

" 'Yes, sir. It was ten cords — just ■' 

"'There! never mind,' interrupted Johnson. 

" 'Now, how much less than twelve cords were 
there?' 

" 'Two cords, sir.' 

" 'How do you know there were just two cords less, 



SA TIRE KILLS ERROR. 1 1 5 

sir? Did you measure these two cords, sir?' asked 
Johnson savagely. 

"'No, sir; I ' 

"'There, that will do! You did not measure it. 
Just as I expected. All guess-work. Now didn't you 
swear a moment ago that you measured this wood?' 

" 'Yes, sir; but — ■ — ' 

" 'Stop, sir! The jury will note this discrepancy.' 

" 'Now, sir,' continued Johnson slowly, as he pointed 
his finger almost down my throat ; 'now, sir, on your 
oath, will you swear that there were not ten cords and 
a half?' 

" 'Yes, sir,' I answered meekly. 

" 'Well, now, Mr. Perkins, I demand a straight an- 
swer — a truthful answer, sir. How much wood was 
there?' 

« <T-T-Ten c-c-c-ords,' I answered hesitatingly. 

" 'You swear it?' 

" T-I-d-d-do.' 

:< 'Now,' continued Johnson, as he smiled satirically, 
'do you know the penalty of perjury, sir?' 

"'Yes, sir; I think ' 

' 'On your oath, on your s-o-l-e-m-n oath, with no 
evasion, are you willing to perjure yourself by solemnly 
swearing that there were more than nine cords of wood?' 

" 'Yes, sir; I ' 

"'Aha! Yes, sir. You are willing to perjure your- 
self, then? Just as I thought' (turning to the judge); 
'you see, your Honor, that this witness is prevaricating. 
He is not willing to swear that there were more than 
nine cords of wood. It is infamous, gentlemen of the 
jury, such testimony as this/ The jury nodded assent 
and smiled sarcastically at me. 



n6 ELI PERKINS— THIRTY YEARS OF WIT. 

" 'Now,' said Johnson, 'I will ask this perjured wit- 
ness just one more question.' 

' 'I ask you, sir — do you know — do you realize, sir, 
what an awful — a-w-f-u-1 thing it is to tell a lie?' 
"Yes, sir,' I said, my voice trembling. 
' 'And, knowing this, you swear on your solemn oath 
that there were about nine cords of wood?' 

" 'No, sir; I don't do anything of ' 

' 'Hold on, sir! Now, how do you know there were 
just nine cords?' 

" 'I don't know any such thing, sir! I ' 

"'Aha! you don't know then? Just as I expected. 
And yet you swore you did know. Swore you meas- 
ured it. Infamous ! Gentlemen of the jury, what shall 
we do with this perjurer?' 

"'But I ' 

" 'Not a word, sir — hush! This jury shall not be in- 
sulted by a perjurer! 

" 'Call the next witness!' " 

SATIRE ON THE LAW. 

I have given a satire on the ignorant juror, a satire 
on the browbeating lawyer, and I now follow them 
with a satire on our curious laws: 

I find that all law is based on precedents. Two or 
three precedents establish a certain law. There is no 
use of studying Blackstone any more. No use of 
weighing the question of justice. Precedents are what 
rule the Court. This principle established, I am a full- 
fledged lawyer now. I am E. Perkins, Esq., Attorney- 
at-Law, ready to practise even in the Supreme Court 
at Washington. 

Whenever a client comes to me and tells me he has 
committed a great crime, I read up the precedents and 



SA 77 RE KILLS ERROR. 1 1 7 

tell him what will become of him if he don't run 
away. 

In cases where clients contemplate great crimes, I 
tell them beforehand what will be the penalty if they 
don't buy a juryman. 

Yesterday a man came to me and said he wanted to 
knock Henry Watterson's teeth down his throat. 
"What will be the penalty, Mr. Perkins?" he asked. 

"Are they false teeth or real teeth?" I inquired. 

''False, I think, sir." 

"Then, don't do it, sir. False teeth are personal 
property ; but if they are real, knock away." 

These are the precedents: 

I. A fellow on Third Avenue borrowed a set of false 
teeth from the show case of a dentist, and he was sent 
to Sing Sing for four years. 

II. Another fellow knocked a man's real teeth down 
his throat, and Judge Barnard let him off with a repri- 
mand ! 

The next day Grover Cleveland came to me and 
wanted to knock out Mr. Chas. A. Dana's eye, because 
Mr. Dana wrote such long editorials. 

'Are they real eyes or glass eyes, Mr. Cleveland?" I 
asked. 

"One looks like glass, the other is undoubtedly real," 
said the ex-President. 

"Ah," I said, "the glass eye is personal property and 
the real eye is a part of the person. Let's see, the 
precedents for taking real property are as follows : 

I. Making - off with a man's glass eye — two years in Sing Sing. 

II. Tearing out a man's real eye — a fine of five dollars. 

III. Stealing a man's crutch — two years' imprisonment. 

IV. Breaking a man's leg — a fine of ten dollars or reprimand 
from the judge. 



no ELI PERKINS— THIRTY YEARS OF WIT. 

"Mr. Cleveland," I said, "you must be careful about 
disturbing Mr. Dana's glass eye, but you can scratch 
out that real eye with impunity. Fee for professional 
advice, please, twenty-five dollars." 

As the ex-President handed me the change, I re- 
marked gratis : 

"Damage to a man's property — the penitentiary." 

"Damage to a man's body, or destruction of a man's 
life — acquittal, or a recommendation to mercy." 

SATIRE ON SOCIETY. 

My earlier writings, in " Saratoga in 1901," are usually 
satires. I have always despised the brainless dude who 
lived on his father's reputation and money till he could 
marry a rich girl and board with her mother. Worthy 
girls often marry these aimless dudes, and, after a fash- 
ionable wedding, spend a lifetime mourning because 
they did not marry a brave, strong working-fellow, who 
would have felt rich in their affections, and who, with 
a little help from his father-in-law, would have hewed 
his way to wealth and position. 

RULES FOR MAKING HEARTLESS DUDES. 

These are the ten rules I wrote showing how the 
brainless son of a rich father can become a dude : 

First. — If your father is rich and holds a high social 
position, don't go to school yourself, take lectures in the 
scientific course at Harvard one year to get the dude 
dialect, and learn to wear peaked-toed shoes. 

Second. — When you return home with the Harvard 
stamp, if you haven't sense enough to make a living, 
pay your addresses to some rich girl — and marry her, if 
you can. 



SA TIRE KILLS ERROR. 119 

Third. — Go home and live with her father, and mag- 
nanimously spend her money. Keep up your flirtations 
around town just the same. Gamble a little, and al- 
ways dine at the clubs. 

Fourth. — After your wife has nursed you through a 
spell of sickness, and she looks languid and worn with 
anxiety, tell her, like a high-toned gentleman, that she 
has grown plain looking — then scold her a little and 
make love to her maid. 

Fifth. — If your weary wife objects, I'd insult her — 
tell her you won't be tyrannized over. Then come 
home drunk once or twice a week and empty the coal 
scuttle into the piano, and pour the kerosene lamp over 
her Saratoga trunk and into baby's cradle. When she 
cries, I'd twit her about the high (hie) social position of 
your own (hie) family. 

Sixth. — If, weary and sick and heartbroken, she finally 
asks for a separation, I'd blacken her character, deny 
the paternity of my own children, get a divorce my- 
self. Then by wise American law you can keep all her 
money, and while she goes back in sorrow to her father, 
you can magnanimously peddle out to her a small 
dowry from her own estate. 

Seventh. — If she asks you — audaciously asks you — 
for any of her own money, tell her to go to the dev- 
devil (the very one she has come to). 

Eighth. — Now I'd keep a mistress and a poodle dog, 
and ride up to the park with them in a gilded landau- 
let every afternoon. While this miserable, misguided 
woman will be trodden in the dust by society, you can 
attain to the heights of modern chivalry by leading at 
the charity balls in New York, playing polo at New- 
port, and raising pug dogs for the dog show, 



120 ELI PERKINS -THIRTY YEARS OE WIT. 

Ninth. — After you have used up your wife's last 
money in dissipation, and brought your father's gray 
hairs down in sorrow to the grave, I'd get the delirium 
tremens and shoot myself. This will create a sensation 
in the newspapers, and cause every other rich dude to 
call you high-toned and chivalrous. 

Tenth. — Then that poor angel wife, crushed in spirit, 
tried in the crucible of adversity, and purified by the 
beautiful "do-unto-others" of the Christ-child, will go 
into mourning, and build, with her last money, a monu- 
ment to the memory of the man who crushed her bleed- 
ing heart. 

Here is a little satire on the poor dude: 
There are three kinds of dudes in New York. There 
is the inanimate rich dude, who don't want to do any- 
thing on earth but exhibit himself. Then there is the 
poor dude, who dresses like the rich dude, and who 
wants to marry a rich girl and board with her mother ; 
and, lastly, there is the wicked clubhouse dude, who 
wastes his rich father's money, and then marries four 
or five rich women, kills them off, and lives off their 
estates. 

THE POOR DUDE. 

The poor dude wears the same one-barreled eye-glass 
that the rich dude does. He wears apparently th? same 
high collar, the same peaked-toed shoes, with drab tops, 
the same English top-coat, and the same embroidered 
kids ; but when you examine them closely they all prove 
to be ati inferior imitation, made on Sixth Avenue. 
The poor dude don't have rooms at Delmonico's. He 
rents a hall bedroom and eats where he is invited. He 
goes to the opera on one-dollar-stand-up tickets, and 



SA TIRE KILLS ERROR. I 2 I 

then goes and visits some rich young lady who is sit- 
ting in a twenty dollar box. They always go to parties 
as escorts, the poor dudes do, and let some rich young 
lady find the carnage. 

I knew a poor New York dude whose pet theory for 
years has been to marry a rich orphan girl with a bad 
cough — with the consumption. One day he came into 
my room almost heartbroken. 

"My pet theory is exploded, Eli," he said. 'T am 
discouraged. I want to die." 

Then the tears rolled down his cheeks. 

"What is it, Charley? Oh, what has happened?" I 
asked. 

"Oh-o-o-o, Eli," he sobbed, and then he broke down. 

When his feelings recovered he took my hand trem- 
blingly in his and told me all about it : 

"The other day," he sobbed, "I met a very rich 
young lady — the rich Miss Astor, sister of Jack Astor 
of Fifth Avenue: She was very wealthy — wore dia- 
monds and laces — had government bonds, but alas ! 
she didn't have any cough to go with them. She had 
oceans of money but no sign of a cough — no quick 
consumption — just my luck!" 

And then he buried his face in his hands. 

"What else, Eugene?" I asked. 

"Well, yesterday, Eli, I met a beautiful young lady 
from Chicago. She was frail and delicate ; had just the 
cough I wanted — a low, hacking, musical cough. It was 
just sweet music to listen to that girl's cough. I took 
her jeweled hand in mine and asked her to be my bride ; 
but, alas ! in a fatal moment I learned that she hadn't any 
money to go with her cough, and I had to give her up. 
I lost her. Oh, I lost her!" 



122 ELI PERKINS— THIRTY YEARS OF WIT. 

And then the hot, scalding tears trickled through his 
fingers and rolled down on his patent-leather boots. 

SAD REFLECTIONS. 

A kind old father-in-law on Madison Avenue, who is 
supporting four or five poor dudes as sons-in-law, went 
down to see Barnum's Fejee cannibals. 

"Why are they called cannibals?" he asked of Mr. 
Barnum. 

"Because they live off of other people," replied the 
great showman. 

"Oh, I see !" replied the unhappy father-in-law. 
"Alas! my four dude sons-in-law are cannibals, too — 
they live off me !" 

The genial Hugh J. Hastings despised the snobbish 
moneyed aristocracy of New York. "They are cads," 
he said one day ; "their fathers were tailors, oyster open- 
ers, snuffmakers, and muskrat-skin peddlers. I want 
you to write a strong article, and stand up to the idea 
that 'worth makes the man and want of it the fellow.' ' 

"No," I said, "I will write a simple satire on the 
growth of aristocracy;" and I wrote this satirical 

STORY OF EZRA GREEN, JR. 

His name was Ezra Green, Jr. He was a high-toned 
New. York Englishman, and he turned and cast upon 
me an imperial look, as he said in scorn : 

"I disdain a Yankee," and then he frowned at me 
through a single eye-glass. 

I thought this was queer when I remembered that 
his old father and mother still live on Second Avenue 
— over there where the Fifth Avenue fellows go to flirt 
with the girls Sunday afternoons. 



SA TIRE KILLS ERROR. 1 23 

Alas! Ezra was once a tailor himself on Avenue II. 
Time passed, and this respectable Second Avenue tailor 
grew to be a 



MERCHANT 

TAILOR. 



More time went on. Providence prospered Ezra, 
and his coats fitted well. He spent much of his feeble 
income in improved signs. One day I saw a flashy 
painter paint these letters over his door: 

Ezra L. Green, • 

; MERCHANT Tailor and IMPORTER, j 

More time skipped along, the tailor moved up town, 
and I saw Ezra raise the imperial arms of England and 
France on each end of his sign. Then it read, in bright 
gilt letters: 

E. Livingstone Green, : 

\PAJiIS. IMPORTER. LONDON.] 

Alas! "the poor tailor" became smaller and smaller, 
until it faded entirely away — and still Ezra made 
clothes. 

One day a retired Broadway merchant saw the im- 
posing sign, and, stepping in, innocently asked Ezra 
the price of "exchange on London." 

"The price of the which?" inquired Ezra, sticking his 
shears behind his ears. 



124 ELI PERKINS— THIRTY YEARS OF WIT. 

"Oh! I am mistaken. You do not do bank business." 

Ezra said he made clothes for a good many bankers, 
but the Broadway merchant slid away as if ashamed of 
his mistake. 

Fortune smiled upon Ezra, affluence gilded his des- 
tiny, and his clothes wore well. He rode in a liveried 
landaulet, traveled in foreign climes, reveled with the 
nobility in palaces without expending a cent out- 
side for patching his pants. His career was happy 
and glorious abroad, and his breeches never ripped 
at home. 

And now Ezra, Jr., has become a great swell. He is 
the Dude of Dudes. He has a corner house on Fifth 
Avenue, gives dinners to the 400, and dances at the 
Patriarchs' Ball. He is president of the Polo Club, 
drives a tandem team at Newport, plays baccarat, leads 
the coaching parade, and every night he adorns a front 
proscenium box at the opera. He despises labor so 
much that when his coat loses a button he goes into 
the clothes press where no mortal eye can see him and 
— sews it on. He would not even speak to an ignoble 
tailor. 

By and by the aristocratic children of E. Livingstone 
Green will put up a bronze statue of the evoluted tailor 
in the public park, and it will be next to a Mr. Dodge 
who sold tin and — well, we do not remember what else. 



In satirizing social matters, the satirical proposal by 
the fashionable worldly dude is quite apropos: 

The scene is laid at Tuxedo ; the youth a blase mem- 
ber of the Knickerbocker Club: 

Her eyes shone a beautiful, joyous light when he 
leaned forward and said : 



SATIRE KILLS ERROR. 125 

"Julia, I have something confidential to tell you." 

"What is it, Augustus?" she asked, in a low, silvery 
voice — a kind of German silvery voice. 

"Well, Julia, to be frank with you, I think that 
under some circumstances I might love you. Now, do 
you love me?" 

"Yes, Augustus, I do love you ; you know I do," and 
then she flung her alabaster arms around his neck. 

"I am very glad, Julia," he said, "for I like to be 
loved." 

"Well, Augustus?" 

But Augustus never said another word. Fashion- 
able fellows never say more than that nowadays. 

A similar proposal on the part of Miss Warren, a 
Boston young lady, occurred at Saratoga. The Boston 
girl had been flirting for hours on the lovers' balcony 
of the States with Mr. Jack Astor of New York. They 
had talked about love in all its phases, but Mr. Astor 
was slow to take the hint. She could not force him 
up to the proposing point. Finally I saw Miss Warren 
look lovingly up into Mr. Astor's eyes and pathetically 
remark : 

"Love — oh, love is sweet, Mr. Astor! — my dear Mr. 
Astor; but nobody loves me — nobody " 

"Yes, Miss Warren, God loves you; and — your 
mother loves you." 

"Mr. Astor, let's go in." 

And five minutes afterward Miss Warren was trying 
the drawing-out dodge on another poor, innocent, unsus- 
pecting fellow. 

A day or two after the dude proposal I met 
Julia at a party. She seemed quite indignant at some- 
thing. 



126 ELI PERKINS— THIRTY YEARS OF WIT. 

"Do you know?" she said, "that a married man 
actually tried to flirt with me at Tuxedo?" 

"He did? that was dreadful; a married man flirting! 
What did you say to him?" 

"I told him his wife must have been a Third Avenue 
chump to marry a man who couldn't flirt any better 
than he could. Oh, I crushed him !" 

How sweet it is to read the old-fashioned proposal 
after these satires ! Proposals like this : 

"May I call you Paula?" he asked modestly. 

"Yes," she said faintly. 

"Dear Paula; may I call you that?" 

"I suppose so." 

"Do you know I love you?" 

"Yes." 

"And shall I love you always?" 

"If you wish to." 

"And will you love me?" 

Paula did not reply. 

"Will you, Paula?" he repeated. 

"You may love me," she said again. 

"But don't you love me in return?" 

"I love you to love me." 

"Won't you say anything more explicit?" 

'T would rather not." 

They were married in the spring. 

The shortest courtship I ever heard of occurred out 
in Ohio. 

"Widder Jenkins," said old farmer Dobson of Windy 
Hill, as he hustled into the widow's house one morn, 
ing, "I am a man of business. I am worth $10,800, and 
want you for a wife. I give you three minutes to answer." 

"I don't want ten seconds, old man," she replied, as 



SA TIRE KILL S ERR OR. 127 

she shook out the dishcloth. "I'm a woman of busi- 
ness, worth $16,000, and I wouldn't marry you if you 
were the last man on earth ! I give you a minute and 
a half to git." 

The most dignified satire I ever wrote was a satire 
on the Old World ruins, delivered in a lecture before 
Princeton College. I give it as reported in the 
Princetonian: 

"My Uncle Consider," said Mr. Perkins, "went to see 
the Prince of Wales while he was here. They had a 
long; talk, the Prince and Consider did. 

' 'How do you like our country — America?' asked 

my uncle, as he held the Prince's trembling hand in his. 

' Tt is great, Mr. Perkins — g-r-e-a-t. Europe, with her 

two thousand years of civilization, only excels you in 

one thing.' 

" 'What is that, your Highness?' 

"'Alas! in her magnificent ruins, Mr. Perkins ' 

' 'But, your Worshipful, we have a remedy for that. 
You have old ruins in Germany and England, but we 
build our houses very shabbily, and we shall soon have 
ruins — s-p-1-e-n d-i-d young ruins, here, too. Look at 
Washington monument.* It looks like a y-o-u-n-g 
r-u-i-n now. [Laughter.] Go to Mount Vernon and 
see the crumbling tomb of the Father of our Country. 
Go to Princeton and see the sidewalks.' [Loud laugh- 
ter.] 

' 'Yes, Mr. Perkins, I see the enterprise of you 
Americans on the ruin question, but you cannot quite 

* Washington's monument was at this time half built. It had re- 
mained looking like a young ruin for twenty-five years. It has since 
been finished. — Melville D. Landon. 



128 ELI PERKINS— THIRTY YEARS OF WIT. 

compete with us yet. You have the crumbling tomb 
of the Father of your Country, but you have no Kenil- 
worth ; you have Washington monument, but you 
have no Pantheon, no Coliseum, no ruined Senate Hall, 
no ' 

" 'But your Worshipful has not seen all our ruined 
halls. You have not seen our magnificent ruins of 
Tammany Hall and Mayor Hall. They are beautiful 
to behold. They are the reward of virtue.' 

' 'Yes,' continued my uncle thoughtfully, 'we have 
other and grander ruins than all of these. We have 
the ruins of a standing army ; we have the ruins of 
aristocracy and caste ; we have the ruins of nullification 
and secession ; and we have that still grander ruin, the 
ruin of human slavery. [Applause.] We have the 
ruins of that old feudal law of entail and primogeni- 
ture; and we have the ruins of that stupendous fallacy 
of you Old World despots, the divine right of kings!' 

" 'Yes, Mr. Perkins,' interrupted the Prince, as he 
laid his hands on my uncle's shoulders and looked him 
straight in the face, 'and on these ruins you have 
reared your magnificent civilization. On these ruins 
you have reared a nation whose sublime progress 
makes Europe look like a pigmy! 

: ' 'And this,' he continued, 'is American Democracy. 
Alas!' he continued to mourn, 'if we had more of your 
republican ruins, more ruins of slavery and despo- 
tism, more ruins of aristocracy in place of our ruined 
towers and pyramids, cathedrals and coliseums, we 
would be better off!' " [Applause.] 



SATIRE KILLS ERROR. 129 



POLITICAL SATIRES. 

Is satire a strong weapon? 

It is the strongest weapon known; but it must be 
addressed to an intelligent audience. It has to be 
double discounted. The most cruel satire is to call a 
right wrong and a wrong right. The reader feels out- 
raged. His prejudices all disappear and his superior 
judgment rises up and exclaims, with the intense wrath 
of Greeley, when he said : 

"You lie — you villain; you lie!" 

The most cutting piece of political satire I ever wrote 
was a letter addressed to W. H. Barnum, the chairman 
of the Democratic Committee in 1888, giving very satiri- 
cal reasons for deserting Harrison and coming out for 
Cleveland. The heading deceived many Democratic 
editors, who published it, and followed the next day 
with an apology to their Democratic readers. The 
theory of the satire was to exaggerate Cleveland's mild 
vices and short comings into sweet angelic virtues and 
praise them, and to exaggerate Harrison's virtues and 
logical political beliefs into shocking vices and condemn 
them. It was written in the heat of the campaign 
and all devices are fair in love and politics. Friend 
and foe must always admit that Cleveland made an 
honest president, and his administration was as free 
from scandal as the administrations of Hayes or 
Harrison. 

The satirical letter ran like this: 



13° eli perkins— thirty years of wit. 

"Harrison Deserted Again! 

" W. H. Barnum, Chairman Democratic Committee : 

"DEAR SIR: Below I give my reasons for deserting 
Harrison and protection and coming out for your noble 
Grover Cleveland and free trade. 

"I am against Harrison because he is an honest 
Christian ; because he is for temperance, and for 
twenty years has been a Christian vestryman, and 
twice a day bows down in family prayer. 

"I am against Harrison because he drew his sword 
for the republic in 1861, while noble Grover Cleveland 
bravely stayed at home and hired a substitute, and 
paid him with the money earned by hanging criminals. 
I am down on Harrison because he did not desert 
the nation, as did the noble Democratic party, with 
secession in the Senate, theft in the War Department, 
bankruptcy in the Treasury, and treason in the field. 

"I am a Democrat. 

"I am against Harrison and the Republican party be- 
cause they freed 4,000,000 slaves in 1863, because they 
made them citizens and gave them the right to vote 
for the nation for which they fought, and because, to- 
day, if Harrison were President, he'd honestly count 
these freedmen's votes and stop our noble Grover from 
holding by fraud the Presidential office. 

"I am a Democrat. 

"I am opposed to Harrison and protection because 
the English aristocracy hate them worse than they 
hate an Irish patriot, and because if Harrison becomes 
our President he'll watch the tariff and see that it 
protects our workingmen. 

"I am a Democrat. 



SA TIRE KILLS ERROR. 1 3 l 

"I am down on the Republican party for saving the 
republic when seventeen Democratic States trod down 
our flag; down on the Republican party for slaughter- 
ing 100,000 free trade rebel Democrats, and down on 
Lincoln, Grant, and Garfield — yes, and Logan, Hale, 
and Conkling — for making England give up Mason and 
Slidell, spit on that rebel rag, and reverently cheer the 
Stars and Stripes. 

"I am a Democrat. 

"I am down on Harrison because, if once made 
President, he'll surely kill Mills's English tariff bill for 
lowering the wages of our Northern workingmen ; 
down on him because he says he'll keep the Chinese 
out and hold back ignorant paupers coming in to oust 
our high-priced workmen of the North. 

"I'm down on Harrison because he'll keep such cop- 
perheads as Thurman, Vallandigham, and Daniel Voor- 
hees out ; because I love those noble Democrats who, 
when we were soldiering, cursed old Abe Lincoln and 
stabbed us in the back. 

"I am a Democrat. 

"I am for Cleveland and free trade because all our 
ex-secessionists are for them ; because with free trade 
they can grind down the poor mechanic of the North 
and pay him back for stamping on the rebel flag. 

"I am for Cleveland because the British minister 
says he favors building up great English industries by 
breaking down American manufacturers; because he 
wants the Yankee workmen to live on English pay, 
and because he wants the free trade South to ship 
direct from England and kill our Yankee workmen in 
the North. 

"I am for Cleveland and free trade because every 



I3 2 ELI PERKINS— THIRTY YEARS OE WIT. 

rebel who shot into our flag is for them. I am a 
Democrat for tree trade and against the Yankee work- 
ingman because Jeff Davis is, and Beauregard and 
every old slave driver of the South. 
"I am a Democrat. 

"Yes, I'm down on Harrison because he wants every 
Union-loving freedman in the South to cast his honest 
vote, when he knows so well an honest count will 
break the Democratic South and stop another presi- 
dent by fraud. 

"Yours truly, 

"Eli Perkins. 
"Harrison Deserter, No. 32." 

When we consider how Harrison has stood for the 
Election Bill, which is really nothing more or less 
than Cleveland's "Ballot Reform," and how he has 
stood for a protective tariff, my satire sounds to me 
now almost prophetic. 

The reader will appreciate the power of satire when 
I say that the above seventy lines were copied into 
thousands of newspapers, and were read by probably 
10,000,000 people within a week. It brought back 
bushels of letters pro and con to the writer, and among 
them letters from so great a man as James G. Blaine, 
and the two Presidential candidates, Cleveland and Har- 
rison. President Harrison's letter is given below : 



"Indianapolis, November 26, 1 
"674 North Delaware Street. 
"Eli Perkins, Esq., New York : 

"My Dear SIR: Please accept my very sincere 
thanks, not only for your friendly words but also for 



SATIRE KILLS ERROR. 1 33 

your zealous and effective work during the campaign. 
I have not until now been able to make my acknow- 
ledgment to you. 

"Very truly yours, 

"Benjamin Harrison." 

During the previous Blaine and Hancock campaign, 
I wrote my satirical reasons for abandoning Blaine and 
indorsing Hancock, which brought this letter from the 
Plumed Knight : 



"Senate Chamber, Washington. 
"My Dear SIR: Words of 'truth' are not rare with 
you, — but 'truth and soberness' combined have not 
been your peculiar characteristic, — but your last effort 
in that line is an 'amazing hit' with me, for which I 
tender my sincere and grateful thanks. 

"You can render great aid, and I shall cordially 
acknozvledge and reciprocate both good intentions and 
good works. 

"Hastily, Yours sincerely, 

"J. G. Blaine. 
Eli Per kins y 



& 



The following- is a facsimile of Mr. Blaine's letter 



134 ELI PERKINS— THIRTY YEARS OF WIT. 

SENATE CHAMBER 

WASHINGTON 




^Z^X- — ^-^ 









SA TIRE KILLS ERROR. 



135 













In 1880 I was called upon by Governor Jewell, 
Chairman of the Republican National Committee, to 
make thirty-six speeches in Indiana. I was coupled 
with Judge Albion W. Tourgee, who had just made a 
national reputation as the author of "The Fool's 
Errand." My speeches were entirely satirical. I 
append a few lines of my Fort Wayne speech, as 
reported by the Fort Wayne Gazette: 

"What will the South give the North if they elect a 
president and become the nation? 



I3 6 ELI PERKINS— THIRTY YEARS OF WIT. 

"All we know is what they did give us when they 
had the power. Last year the Democratic party had 
the upper and lower house. What did they give the 
great North. Who did they give the chairmanship of 
the great committee on "finance" to? Did they give 
it to the great State of New York? No, they gave it 
to the little rebel State of Delaware. They gave it to 
Bayard, who made a speech for secession. 

"Who did they give the next great committeeship 
to — the committeeship of appropriations? Did they 
give it to the great State of Indiana? No, they gave 
it to the rebel General Atkins, of Tennessee. 

"What did they give to the great State of Indiana? 
What did they give to your splendid Daniel Voorhees — 
your Tall Sycamore of the Wabash? 

"I will tell you. They made him chairman of the 
committee on seeds — library and seeds! [Laughter.] 
Now picture to yourselves, Indianians, your splendid 
Daniel Voorhees as he goes to the Agricultural 
Department. He says, I will have a paper of holly- 
hock seeds for Terre Haute. [Laughter.] I will have 
turnip seeds for Evansville. [Laughter.] I will have 
them ! I am the King of Seeds." [Loud laughter.] 

Ridicule can be used in politics when the people are 
tired of reading serious arguments. During the last 
election the people got so tired of tariff discussions 
that the very mention of the word tariff would cause a 
man to change his seat in the cars. It got to be a 
joke, as much of a chestnut as "Annie Rooney." 

Meeting Congressman Amos Cummings one day, I 
asked him how he was getting on financially. 

"Splendidly," said the old journalist. "I've just 
been offered a splendid situation." 



SATIRE KILLS ERROR. 137 

"What is it?" I asked. 

"Well, I'd spent all my congressional salary, and 
felt pretty poor, and this afternoon I went into the 
Eden Musee and asked for a situation. 

"'What can you do?' asked the manager. 

'• 'I'm a freak,' I said. 

" 'Well, what can you do?' 

" 'This, sir," I said. 'I've been in New York now for 
ten days and haven't said a word about the tariff.' 

" 'All right, I'll give you sixty dollars a week.' ' ; 

SATIRIZING THE AGNOSTICS. 

The most scientific way to destroy the errors of the 
agnostics is to satirize them — intensify them. The 
agnostic assaults Christianity with ridicule, as I shall 
show later on. Satire kills error, while ridicule harms 
truth. This is the way I w r ould satirize the theories of 
such agnostics as Spencer, Huxley, and Ingersoll : 

Yes, I am an agnostic. I reject the Bible and agree 
with Huxley, Darwin, and Ingersoll in a religion of 
reason and not of inspiration. Down with wicked 
Christianity and the churches. The old theory of 
creation is all wrong. Nothing was created. Every- 
thing grew. In the old Bible we read: "In the begin- 
ning God created heaven and earth." 

"Now this is all wrong," say Darwin and I. Our 
new Bible is to commence like this: 

Genesis. Chap. I. 

i. There never was a beginning. The Eternal with- 
out us, that maketh for righteousness, took no notice 
whatever of anything. 

2. And Cosmos was homogeneous and undiffereru 



138 ELI PERKINS— THIRTY YEARS OE WIT. 

tiated, and somehow or another evolution began, and 
molecules appeared. 

3. And molecule evolved protoplasm, and rhythmic 
thrills arose, and then there was light. 

4. And a spirit of energy was developed and formed 
the plastic cell, whence arose the primordial germ. 

5. And the primordial germ became protogene, and 
protogene somehow shaped eocene — then was the 
dawn of life. 

6. And the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree 
yielding fruit, after its own kind, whose seed is in itself, 
developed according to its own fancy. And the Eternal 
without us, that maketh for righteousness, neither knew 
nor cared anything about it. 

7. The cattle after his kind, the beast of the earth 
after his kind, and every creeping thing became evolved 
by heterogeneous segregation and concomitant dissipa- 
tion of motion. 

8. So that by survival of the fittest there evolved 
the simiads from the jelly-fish, and the simiads differen- 
tiated themselves into the anthropomorphic primordial 
types. 

9. And in due time one lost his tail and became a 
man, and behold he was the most cunning of all 
animals; and lo ! the fast men killed the slow men, 
and it was ordained to be so in every age. 

10. And in process of time, by natural selection and 
survival of the fittest, Matthew Arnold, Huxley, 
Herbert Spencer, Charles Darwin, and Robert Ingersoll 
appeared, and behold it was good ! 



RIDICULE KILLS TRUTH. 



Ridiculing Truth and Laughing it out of Court — Randolph ridicules 
Clay — Ingersoll ridicules Christianity — How to meet Ridicule — 
Ridiculing Ritualism — Beecher ridicules Bob — Ridicule a Lawyer's 
weapon, not the Clergyman's — Christ used Satire but not Ridicule. 

AFTER making the discovery that satire destroys 
error, I commenced investigating ridicule. The 
rhetoricians have never separated the two. I found 
that when Cervantes wanted to kill knight-errantry in 
Spain he exaggerated it, and that when Ingersoll 
wanted to kill Christianity he ridiculed it. I found 
that the lawyer who was on the wrong side in a case 
always ridiculed the right side. Satire is to exaggerate 
an error till you see it and stamp it out ; while ridicule 
is to exaggerate a truth, deform it, and you laugh it out. 
With satire the error goes with a kick, while with ridi- 
cule the truth goes with a laugh. Ridicule is an awful 
weapon, because with it you can harm the truth. In 
fact the only way to harm truth is to ridicule it. Deny 
truth? That don't hurt truth any. You will simply 
impeach your own veracity — kill yourself. But you 
can ridicule truth and, as the lawyers say, "laugh it out 
of court." 

This is the reason why lawyers always use ridicule — 
in all law cases only one side is right; the other must 
be wrong; and the man who is on the wrong side, if he 
is a good lawyer, will not say a word about his side, but 



14° ELI PERKINS—THIRTY YEARS OF WIT. 

he will walk over to the right side, exaggerate it, and 
"laugh it out of court." 

To show you how lawyers ridicule the truth, to kill 
it : I attended a murder case a while ago in Akron, O. 
It was a homicide case — a case where a man had acci- 
dentally killed his friend. This lawyer wanted to win 
the sympathy of the jury, and he told the jury, in a 
very pathetic and truthful manner, how bad his client 
felt. 

"Oh, my client felt so bad," he began, in weeping 
tones, "felt so bad when he killed his friend, the 
tears rolled down his cheeks ; he knelt down by that 
fallen form !" 

Well, the jury knew that his touching pathos was 
true, and so did the other lawyer. But the opposing 
counsel could not let it stand, because it had touched 
the jury. What did he do? Why, he took that true 
pathos right over on the other side, exaggerated it, and 
turned it into ridicule, and laughed it out of court. 

"Yes," he said, with exaggerated pathos, "the accused 
did feel bad when he killed his friend. The tears did 
roll down his cheeks. He took off one boot, and 
emptied it [laughter by the jury] ; then he cried some 
more ; then he emptied his other boot [laughter] ; then 
he tied his handkerchief around his trousers — cried 'em 
full, boo-hoo!" [Laughter by the jury.] 

In a moment he had that jury laughing at exagger- 
ated truth and pathos. 

The truth was gone ! 

A good lawyer never denies a true statement before 
the jury; it is much easier to exaggerate that state- 
ment, and make the jury "laugh.it out of court." 

Colonel Ingersoll often squelched the opposing coun- 



RIDICULE KILLS TRUTH. 141 

sel by a blast of ridicule. One day in Peoria they were 
trying a patent churn case. The opposing counsel used 
many scientific terms. He talked about the science of 
the machine, and how his client had contributed to sci- 
ence a valuable discovery. 

"Science!" yelled Colonel Ingersoll. "The opposing 
counsel is always talking about science, and see" (look- 
ing over at the opposing counsel's brief), "he spells it 
with a 'y' — with a 'y,' sir! C-y-e-11-c-e." 

The jury burst out laughing and the truth-loving 
scientist lost a good case. 

If you read ^Eschines or Aristippus, the cynic and 
pupil of Socrates, in the old Greek, you will see most 
charming ridicule. Aristippus was full of it. 

On one occasion, when Athens was running to muscle 
instead of brains, Sinon, a swell young athlete, came 
to Aristippus and others and commenced boasting 
about his muscle. 

"I tell you, sir," said the boasting Sinon, "I can swim 
farther than any man in Athens." 

"And so can a goose," said Aristippus. 

"Yes, and I can dive deeper than any man in Greece." 

"And so can a bull-frog," said Diogenes. 

"And, more than that, I can kick higher than any 
man in Athens, and " 

"And so can a jackass," interrupted ^Eschines. 

"And more than all of these, everybody says I'm the 
handsomest man in Athens." 

"And so is a brass statue, — a hollow brass statue, — 
and it has neither life nor brains," said Aristippus. 

"And they say I have the most musical voice in the 
city." 

"And so has a tin horn, A tin horn with an idiot 



142 ELI PERKINS—THIRTY YEARS OF WIT. 

behind it can make better music than any singer in 
Greece." 

This made Sinon mad, and he twitted Aristippus 
with having no children. 

"The gods will not permit any more such cynics to 
be born, while I have many children," said the singer. 

"Yes, you ignoramus," said Aristippus, "you boast 
of a quality in which all slaves are your equal and every 
jackass your superior!" 

Strange to say, eighteen hundred years afterward, 
John Randolph used Sinon's reply to Clay when he 
twitted the cynic of Roanoke with having no children. 

But Clay afterward used Randolph all up when he 
made this witty reply, which will live as long as history : 

One day Clay met his disagreeable enemy, Randolph, 
on the sidewalk. The cranky old Virginian came 
proudly up, and occupying most of the sidewalk hissed : 

"I never turn out for scoundrels!" 

"I always do," said Clay, stepping aside with mock 
politeness. 

Ridicule will use a man up quicker than abuse. 
Abuse makes a man combative and he will fight back, 
while ridicule is unanswerable. 

I remember the case of an indignant commercial 
traveler at a Mississippi railroad eating-house, who was 
utterly routed by a little ridicule from the landlord. 
This particular commercial man was a great fault-finder, 
and that day he was growling when he went in, and he 
growled all the while he was eating, and when he 
slouched up to the desk to pay his seventy-five cents he 
broke out with : 

"Them sandwiches are enough to kill a dog!" 

"What sandwiches?" 



RIDICULE KILLS TRUTH. 143 

"Why, them on the table." 

"But we have no sandwiches on the table, sir," pro- 
tested the landlord. 

"You haven't? Well, I should like to know what 
you call them roasted brickbats on that blue platter?" 

"You didn't try to eat one of those, did you?" asked 
the landlord solemnly. 

"Yes, I did !" 

"Then, my friend, you had better go for a doctor at 
once ! Those are table ornaments, made of terra-cotta, 
and were placed there to help fill up space ! Great 
Caesar! you must have lived in a canebrake all your 
life!" 

The commercial man rushed into the car and began 
to drain a brandy flask, and he didn't get over looking 
pale for three hours. 

"And they were sandwiches after all," said the land- 
lord ; "real good ham sandwiches, made that day." 

The landlord had adopted that particular style of 
ridicule instead of using a club. 

Ingersoll often used ridicule effectively in politics. 
One evening a lot of Democrats at the Manhattan Club 
were grumbling because the Republicans boasted so 
much about the past. "You Republicans," said Daniel 
Voorhees, "are always talking about how you broke up 
slavery and fought through the war. Oh, bury the 
past. Speak about the present. We Democrats are 
not always lugging in the past !" 

''Yes," said Colonel Ingersoll, "I should think the 
Democratic party would bury its past, and its future, 
too, if it ever has any. If the Democratic party had a 
glorious past it would not wish to forget it. If it were 
not for the Republican party there would be no United 



144 ELI PERKINS— THIRTY YEARS OF WIT 

States now on the map of the world. The Democratic 
party wishes to make a bargain with us to say nothing 
about the past and nothing about character. It reminds 
me of the contract that the rooster proposed to make 
with the horse : Let us agree not to step on each 
other's feet." 

The colonel's reply laughed Voorhees out of court. 

Mr. Beecher probably made the wittiest joke on 
Ingersoll that history will record, and it is recorded in 
this book for the first time. I was talking with the 
great Plymouth preacher about the eloquent agnostic, 
when Beecher remarked solemnly: 

"Yes, Robert Ingersoll is eloquent — very eloquent." 

"Do you think his works and sayings will live?" I 
asked. 

"Yes, he will go down with Voltaire and Thomas 
Paine, and I should like to write his epitaph if the great 
agnostic would forgive me for it." 

"What would you write?" 

"Simply this line," said Beecher, smiling: 



ROBERT BURNS 



It is seldom that Ingersoll meets a man who can 
stand up against his eloquence and wit. The great ag_ 
nostic and Mr. Beecher met on the Alton train one day 
just after a famous Christian banker had defaulted and 
fled to Canada. 

"That's the way with you Christians," said Inger- 
soll. "Here is a professed Christian who has been a 
class leader and a vestryman, and now the hypocrite 
robs a bank and away he goes to Canada." 

"Did you ever hear a Christian make an uproar, 
Colonel, when an anti-Christian committed a crime — 



RIDICULE KILLS TRUTH. 145 

when he robbed a bank and fled to Canada?" asked 
Beecher. 

' ' I don't remember any such case now," said Ingersoll. 

"No, you are not surprised when a worldly man com- 
mits a crime. You don't notice it. It is nothing un- 
usual. You see," continued Beecher, "you expect us 
Christians to be perfect. You expect us to be as pure 
and holy as our religion." 

"Of course," said Ingersoll. 

"And when you say 'of course/ you pay us a com- 
pliment, and when you show great surprise that one of 
us should chance to do wrong, you pay us a still finer 
compliment. Don't you?" 

Mr. "Ingersoll was silent, and commenced winding 
his Waterbury watch. 

As the train passed Joliet, Ingersoll commenced com- 
plaining in a bantering way about the hardships Chris- 
tian people have to endure in this world. "They have 
cyclones in Iowa," he said, "grasshoppers in Kansas, 
famines in Ireland, floods in Pennsylvania, yellow fever 
in Galveston, George Francis Train in New York, and 
small-pox epidemics in Baltimore. It is very hard," 
said Mr. Ingersoll. 

"What does all this prove?" asked Beecher. 

"It proves that the universe is not governed by a 
personal God, but by law, law, law. There is no per- 
sonal God or devil. Such ideas are only worthy of a 
savage. Huxley, and Darwin, and Galileo would laugh 
at such ideas. Was it a personal God who burned up 
five hundred people in the Chicago fire. No, it was 
not God. It was law. Foolish Mrs. O'Leary tipped 
over her lantern. By the law of combustion fire started 
and burnt saints and sinners to death." 



146 ELI PERKINS— THIRTY YEARS OF WIT. 

"If there were a personal God, and you were in his 
place, could you make anything better than it is 
being made?" asked Beecher. 

"Why, yes. I could make some things better than 
they are," said Mr. Ingersoll. 

"Now what is one thing that you would change and 
improve? Tell me one thing that you would make dif- 
ferent than it is? Do you mean to say that with our 
feeble intellect we could improve on anything the Al- 
mighty has made?" 

"Yes, certainly I could," said Ingersoll, pushed to 
the wall. 

"Well, tell me one single thing that you could im- 
prove on." 

"My dear sir," said Ingersoll, "if I had my way in 
this world, I would make health catching, instead of 
disease catching !" 

Before the train reached Chicago, Beecher got even 
with the great agnostic. In the seat by the Brooklyn 
preacher was a beautiful celestial .globe — a present from 
a manufacturer in Bloomington. On it was an excellent 
representation of the constellations and stars which 
compose them. There were the rings of Saturn and 
satellites of Uranus. Ingersoll was delighted with the 
globe. He examined it closely and turned it round 
and round. 

"It's just what I want," he said. "Who made it?" 

"Who made it?" repeated Beecher. "Who made this 
globe? Oh, nobody, Colonel; it just happened!" 

"No, no, it couldn't happen!" said Ingersoll. 

"Then no more could this great universe happen," 
said Beecher enthusiastically. "God made it!" 

The great agnostic was silenced. 



RIDICULE KILLS TRUTH. M7 

To illustrate ridicule, I reprint a talk I made before 
the Portsmouth Y. M. C. A. last winter. I give it as 
reported in the morning newspaper: 

"Ridicule," said Eli Perkins, "is to kill truth. A 
good lawyer will never deny a truth before a jury. 
That would impeach his veracity and disgust the 
jury. His true weapon is ridicule. He must exagger- 
ate that truth, overstate it, deform it, and make the 
jury laugh it out of court. 

"Ingersoll, in his discussions with Talmage, never 
denied a true statement of Talmage. I use Ingersoll 
to illustrate my theory because the genial agnostic is 
the king of ridiculers. Ridicule is his weapon, and truth 
is his target. I say Ingersoll exaggerated the true 
statements of Talmage and made them ridiculous. 
For instance, Talmage made a statement about Jonah. 
He said, 'perhaps the whale didn't swallow Jonah. Per- 
haps the whale simply took Jonah in his mouth, carried 
him round a day or two, and then vomited him up.' 
That was enough for Bob. He didn't deny it. He 
went across the platform, and exaggerated Talmage's 
statement. 'Yes,' said Ingersoll, 'I can see Jonah in 
the whale's mouth. He ties himself up to a tooth and 
when the whale chews, Jonah, he crouches down — 
crouches down [laughter, while Bob crouches down, 
keeping time with the whale's jaw], and by and by, 
when the whale isn't looking, Jonah, he jumps over into 
a hollow tooth, builds a fire, reaches out and catches 
a few fish and fries 'em ; peek-a-boo !' [Great laughter.] 
And so he laughs Talmage's statement out of court ; 
but has he denied it? Not at all. 

"Now, again, when Ingersoll wants to ridicule the 
Church, he doesn't take the Church of to-day. He 



I4 8 ELI PERKINS— THIRTY YEARS OF WIT. 

couldn't ridicule that. So what does he do? Why, 
he goes back four hundred years for that Church. He 
goes back to the barbarous Inquisition, when every 
man was a savage, with a spear in one hand and a 
hatchet in the other, trying to kill his fellow-man. 
[Applause.] He goes back to bloody Spain, where the 
State had seized the Church, and they were burning 
Protestants at the stake, pulling their arms out on the 
rack, or boring their eyes out with augers; or he goes 
to England in the time of Bloody Mary, when the State 
had seized the Church, and the Church was not [ap- 
plause] ; where they were toasting John Huss and 
Cranmer and Latimer in the fires of the Inquisition; 
where they were burning the saints' eyes out ; I say, 
he finds the Church in the hands of Bloody Mary, and 
he takes that Church and puts it down before our young 
men of to-day. Then he sets Deacon Thompson to 
boring Deacon Monson's eyes out with an auger, and 
then asks our young if they want to belong to any 
such wicked old church as that? [Laughter.] 

"Now, that isn't the church they are asked to belong 
to. [Applause.] 

" Ridicule is to harm truth, not error. Our clergymen 
have no occasion to use ridicule, for the business of the 
clergyman is not to harm truth but to harm error. So 
he can use satire all day long, because our Saviour used 
it. Our Saviour never used ridicule. [Applause.] 

"In fact, when any man uses ridicule in speech or 
editorial he is trying to stab the truth, for that is what 
the weapon is for. 

"I heard Ingersoll deliver his great lecture on the 
' Mistakes of Moses,' in Indianapolis. Splendid speech ! 
I wouldn't take one plume from the hat of that eloquent 



RIDICULE KILLS TRUTH. 149 

infidel! But what did that speech consist of? Like all 
of his speeches, it was made up of nine magnificent 
truths about human liberty, and human love, and wife's 
love, and then he took one little religious truth, multi- 
plied it by five, turned it into ridicule, and 'laughed it 
out of court.' And the result? Why, the next day, 
as usual, all our clergymen came out and denied the 
whole lecture — denied ridicule ! That is the mistake 
our clergymen have been making for ten years. I 
meet young men every day trembling in the balance, 
because you clergymen have denied too much and not 
explained at all. You have not met the infidel logic- 
ally. If I had followed the great agnostic, I should 
have said : 

'Why, Ingersoll, you have just found out that 
Moses and the Jews, the anti-Christ, made mistakes! 
We Christians knew that Moses made mistakes two 
thousand years ago. It is written there in the Bible 
as plain as day how Moses murdered an Egyptian, hid 
him in the sand, and lied about it. Why, Bob, if Moses 
and the Jews hadn't made mistakes there wouldn't have 
been any New Testament, there wouldn't have been any 
Christianity, there wouldn't have been any need of 
Christ. Christ came to correct the mistakes of Moses. 
[Applause.] Why, Bob, where did you get your news? 
You must have just got your Jerusalem Herald — 
delayed in a storm !' [Laughter.] 

"Then I would have said to those Ingersollized 
Christians, 'Why, my dear, trembling brothers and sis- 
ters, we haven't got to defend Moses, the Jew, because 
he made mistakes, because he murdered and lied [sen- 
sation] ; we Christians haven't got to defend the falter- 
ing Noah when he got drunk; we Christians haven't 



150 ELI PERKINS— THIRTY YEARS OF WIT. 

got to defend David when he became a Nero and slayed 
and debauched his people ; and we Christians haven't 
got to defend that miserable king of the Jews, Solomon, 
when he had four hundred more wives than Brigham 
Young. [Sensation.] But all we Christians have got 
to do, and it is so easy, is to stand by the Bible ac- 
count — that the Bible is true, just as it is written in 
black and white ! They did make mistakes, those Jews 
did, and they made such grievous mistakes that God 
threw the whole Jewish dispensation overboard as a 
failure, — God did nothing in vain, — and started a new 
dispensation, the Christian dispensation, and sent his 
only beloved Son, Christ, to sit on the throne at the 
head of it. [Applause.] What ! you defending the 
unbelieving Jew — the anti-Christ? God never de- 
fended them. They did just the best they could, 
those poor Jews did, without Christ. [Applause.] 
There could be no perfection without Christ. [Ap- 
plause.] 

' 'Now Christians, wait till some one shall assault 
Christianity, not Judaism ; wait till some one shall as- 
sault Christ, not Moses. But no one has assaulted 
Christ. Renan? Never. Ingersoll? Never. When 
they come to Christ they stand with heads uncovered. 
[Loud applause.] 

4 T would say more on this theological subject — I 
would kill the devil — I hate him and I would kill him, 
but I see there are several clergymen present and they 
— have — their — families — to — support !" [Loud laugh- 
ter drowned the speaker's voice.] 

"The fact is, a great many people who never think 
of reading the Scriptures, but. who keep a dusty Bible 
to press flowers in and as a receptacle for receipts for 



RIDICULE KILLS TRUTH. 15 1 

making biscuits, often cavil about some theology that 
they hear about in the corner grocery. A grocery 
theologian said to me one day, 'You don't believe in 
Noah and the flood, do you?' 'Yes,' I said, 'and in the 
Johnstown flood too, when 18,000 were eating and 
drinking, and "that flood came and took them off." 
Christ said that "when He should come again it would 
be as in the days of Noah." 

' 'And the whale story, too. Do you believe that?' 
'Now there is your corner grocery theology again. 
The Bible don't say anything about a whale. It says, 
"And God prepared a great fish." And if God could 
make the universe; if He could say, "let there be 
light," He could say, "let there be a big fish." The 
world is a miracle, the violet is a miracle; man is a 
miracle, the fish is a miracle.' 

' 'And that story of Balaam. Do you believe that?' 
says the grocery theologian. 'Why, scientists have ex- 
amined the mouth of an ass, and they say it is physic- 
ally impossible for him to speak.' 

"To this I answered, with all the sarcasm of Moody, 
'If you will make an ass, I will make him speak!' It's 
all a miracle, life, joy, laughter, tears, and death; and 
He who can create man can resurrect his soul and waft 
it away to eternal joy !" [Loud applause.] 



The argument reductio ad absurdum is an argument 
of ridicule. This was one of Wendell Phillips' favorite 
arguments. 

"One day," said Oliver Wendell Holmes, "I was riding 
in the cars near Philadelphia, when several Southern 
clergymen got into the car. When one of them heard 
that Wendell Phillips, the great antislavery agitator, 



15 2 ELI PERKINS— THIRTY YEARS OF WIT. 

was on board, he asked the conductor to point him out. 
The conductor did so, and the Southern clergyman 
came up to the orator, and bowing, said : 

' T beg pardon, but you are Mr. Phillips — Mr. Wen- 
dell Phillips, of Boston?' 

" 'Yes, sir.' 

" T should like to speak to you about something, and 
I trust, sir, you will not be offended,' said the Southern 
clergyman politely. 

" 'There is no fear of it,' was the sturdy answer; and 
then the minister began to ask Mr. Phillips earnestly 
why he persisted in stirring up such an unfriendly agi- 
tation in the North about the evil of slavery, when it 
existed in the South. 

'Why,' said the clergyman, 'do you not go South 
and kick up this fuss and leave the North in peace?' 

"Mr. Phillips was not the least ruffled, and answered 
smilingly : 

" 'You, sir, I presume, are a minister of the Gospel?' 

" 'I am, sir,' said the clergyman. 
' 'And your calling is to save souls from hell?' 

'Exactly, sir.' 
' 'Then why do you stay here in Pennsylvania, agi- 
tating the question of salvation? why don't you go 
right down to hell, where the sinners are, and save 
'em ?' " 

The Southern clergyman saw his absurd position at 
once. 

Wendell Phillips was once accosted by Dr. Monson, 
a professed deist, who asked him : 

"Do you think a man has a soul?" 

"Yes." 

"Did you ever see a soul?" 



RIDICULE KILLS TRUTH. 153 

"No." 

"Did you ever taste a soul?" 

"No." 

"Did vou ever smell a soul?" 

"No."* 

"Did you ever feel a soul?" 

"Yes." 

"Well," said the doctor, "there are four of the five 
senses against one upon the question whether there be 
a soul." 

"Look here, Dr. Monson," said Mr. Phillips, "you 
are a physician, aren't you?" 

"Yes." 

"Did you ever see a pain?" 

"No." 

"Did you ever hear a pain?" 

< < "XT » » 

No. 

"Did you ever taste a pain?" 

"No." 

"Did you ever smell a pain?' 

"No." 

"Did you ever feel a pain?" 

"Yes." 

"Well, then," said Mr. Phillips, "there are also four of 
the senses against one upon the question whether there 
be a pain. And yet sir, you know that there is a pain, 
and I know that there is a soul." 

One of Ingersoll's favorite arguments against the old 
Connecticut blue laws was the reductio ad absurdum 
fallacy. 

One day Ingersoll was talking with Talmage about 
laws for the enforcement of Sunday observance, when he 
asked the great Brooklyn preacher these questions : 



154 ELI PERKINS— THIRTY YEARS OF WIT. 

"Would you like to live in a community, Mr. Tal- 
mage, where not one cigar could be smoked and not 
one drop of spirituous liquor could be sold or 
drunk?" 

"Certainly," said Talmage; "that would be asocial 
heaven." 

"And you would like to live where no one could 
play on the Sabbath day; where no one could laugh 
out loud and enjoy a frolic?" 

"Certainly." 

"And where every one had to go to church?" 

"Yes, sir; that would suit me. It would be paradise 
to live in a community where every one was compelled 
to go to church every Sunday, where no one could 
drink a drop, where no one could swear, and where the 
law would make every man good. There the law 
would make every man's deportment absolutely cor- 
rect." 

"And you think such a man would be a good 
Christian — a better man than I am?" 

"Why, of course, Colonel." 

"Then," said Mr. Ingersoll, "I advise you to go 
right to the penitentiary. At Sing Sing there is a 
community of 1500 men and women governed in 
precisely that manner. They are all good by law." 

The witty Quaker lecture committeeman at Swarth- 
more College used this same fallacy when he came to 
pay me my lecture fee. He came up to me with a roll 
of bills in his hand and a twinkle in his eye, and said, 
as he counted out my fee: 

"Eli, my friend, does thee believe in the maxims of 
Benjamin Franklin?" 

"Yea," I said. 



RIDICULE KILLS TRUTH. 155 

"Well, friend Eli, Benjamin Franklin, in his Poor 
Richard maxims, says that 'Time is money.' ' 

"Yea, verily, I have read it," I said. 

"Well, Eli, if 'time is money,' as thy friend Poor 
Richard says, and thee believes so, then verily we will 
keep the money, and thee can take it out in time." 



ELI EXPLAINS REPARTEE. 



The Repartee of Diogenes and Aristippus of Greece, Talleyrand and 
Madame de Stael of France, Charles Lamb and Douglas Jerrold of 
England, and Tom Corwin, Randolph, Thad. Stevens, Sam Jones, 
Ben. Butler, Wendell Phillips, and Sam Cox of America — Blaine 
and Conkling's Repartee. 

REPARTEE, like ridicule and satire, is a species of 
wit. It is a quick flash of the imagination — a sort 
of intellectual stab. 

In the case of the bull or blunder, a person stum- 
bles into a witticism ; but repartee shows design and 
thought. 

Repartee is always a smart reply, but it is not 
necessarily unkind. Still cranky and ill-natured men 
like Diogenes, Charles Lamb, Thomas Carlyle, and 
John Randolph have always used it prolifically. 

Repartee is a case where one speaker makes a plain 
statement, aimed in a certain direction, which a Jiearer 
collides with and reverses so as to shoot straight back 
at the speaker. 

"What I want," said a pompous orator, aiming at his 
antagonist, "is good common sense." 

"Exactly," was the whispered reply; "that's just 
what you need." 

Repartee is often very unkind, but its unkindness is 
excusable when the person indulging in it has been at- 
tacked. For instance, Abernethy, the famous surgeon, 

156 



ELI EXP LA INS REP A R TEE. 1 5 7 

swore violently at a poor Irish paver who had piled 
some paving-stones on the doctor's sidewalk. 

"Remove them ! away with them !" screamed Aber- 
nethy, with an oath. 

"But where shall I take them to?" asked Pat. 

"To hell with them !" exclaimed the doctor. 

"Hadn't I better take them to heaven? Sure, an' 
they'd be more out of your honor's way there," said 
Pat, as he leaned on his spade. 

George Francis Train told me once that in his opin- 
ion the finest piece of repartee in the English language 
was the instance where two Irishmen were walking 
under the gibbet at Newgate. Looking up at the 
gibbet, one of them remarked : 

"Ah, Pat, where would you be if the gibbet had done 
its duty?" 

"Faith, Flannagan," said Pat, "and I'd be walking 
London — all alone ! " 

A fine bit of repartee is attributed to Douglas Jer- 
rold. 

"Have you seen my 'Descent into Hell' ?" inquired 
an author, a great bore, who had written a book with a 
fiery title : 

"No," replied Douglas Jerrold, "but I should like to." 

I heard a bright little reply at Spokane Falls, while 
on a recent lecture trip, which was smart enough to be 
repartee : 

There were about a dozen witty commercial men at 
dinner and a very pretty waiter girl was waiting on 
them. She had sweet rosy cheeks, ivory teeth, and a 
smile that bewitched the traveling men. 

After chaffing the pretty waitress a while, one com- 
mercial man looked up, and asked ; 



1 5 8 ELI PERKINS— THIR T Y YEARS OF WI T. 

"What is your name, my pretty waitress?" 

"My name," said the young lady, blushing, "is 
Pearl." 

"Pearl!" repeated the commercial man. "That is 
a very pretty name — a v-e-r-y pretty name." Then 
thinking a moment he asked : 

"Are you the pearl of great price?" 

"No," modestly replied the pretty girl, "I am the 
pearl before swine." 

Aristippus, the cynic, and a pupil of Plato, was 
famous for his repartee, although the translators 
have usually spoiled his jokes by a too literal trans- 
lation. 

Croesus, a rich Greek belonging to the 400 of Athens, 
brought his stupid son to Aristippus one day to have 
him educated. 

"How much will you charge to make my boy a 
scholar?" he asked. 

"How much?" mused Aristippus, as he put his hand 
on the boy's head. "How much? Why, five hundred 
drachmas." 

"Five hundred drachmas!" exclaimed the shoddy 
father. "Why, that's too dear! Why, with five hun- 
dred drachmas I can buy a slave." 

"Then go and buy him," said Aristippus, "and you'll 
have twins. You'll have a pair of 'em." 

"But how will it benefit my son five hundred drachmas' 
worth?" asked the shoddy Greek. 

"Why, when you go to look for him in the theater 
you can distinguish him from the wooden benches."* 



* The literal Greek reply was, " He will not be one stone setting on 
another." The seats of the Athenian theater were of stone. 



ELI EXP LA INS REP A R TEE. 1 5 9 

It was a good bit of repartee that Henry Watterson 
got on Oscar Wilde, the long-haired aesthetic : 

Wilde, in his Louisville lecture, was delivering himself 
of an eloquent tirade against the invasion of the sacred 
domain of art by the meaner herd of tradespeople and 
miscellaneous nobodies, and finally, rising to an Alpine 
height of scorn, exclaimed : 

"Ay, all of you here are Philistines — mere Philis- 
tines!" 

"Yes," whispered Watterson softly, "we are Philis- 
tines, and I suppose that is why we are being assaulted 
with the jawbone of an ass." 

It would take a book to record all of Tom Corwin's 
bright and cutting instances of repartee. Many of 
them are familiar to the old reader, but I record them 
here for the coming man, the boy growing up. 

John C. Calhoun once pointed to a drove of mules 
just from Ohio, and said to Corwin : "There go some 
of your constituents." 

"Yes," said Tom gravely, "they are going down 
South to teach school." 

Governor Brough was once matched against Corwin, 
and in the midst of his speech said : 

"Gentlemen, my honored opponent himself, while he 
preaches protective tariff and home industry, has a 
carriage at home which he got in England, and had it 
shipped across the ocean in an English ship. How is 
that for supporting home industry and labor?" 

When Corwin came on the stand he made a great 
show of embarrassment, stammered, and began slowly : 

"Well, gentlemen, you have heard what my friend 
Mr. Brough has to say of my carriage. I plead guilty 
to the charges, and have only two things to say in my 



160 ELI PERKINS— THIRTY YEARS OF WIT, 

defense. The first is that the carriage came to me 
from an English ancestor as an heirloom, and I had to 
take it. Again, I have not used it for seven years, and 
it has been standing in my back yard all that time, and 
my chickens are roosting on it to-day. Now, gentle- 
men," with a steady look at Brough, "I have nothing 
further to say in my defense; but I would like to 
know how Brough knows anything about my carriage 
if he has not been visiting my chicken roost." 

When I lectured before the Carlisle (Pa.) Teachers' 
Institute they told me innumerable stories about that 
grim old patriot and antislavery agitator, Thad. Ste- 
vens, which almost bordered on repartee. 

One day the old man was practicing in the Carlisle 
courts, and he didn't like the ruling of the presiding 
judge. A second time the judge ruled against "old 
Thad," when the old man got up, with scarlet face and 
quivering lips, and commenced tying up his papers as 
if to quit the court-room. 

"Do I understand, Mr. Stevens," asked the judge, 
eyeing "old Thad" indignantly, "that you wish to 
show your contempt for this Court?" 

"No, sir; no, sir," replied old Thad. "I don't want 
to show my contempt, sir; I'm trying to conceal 
it." 

Alex. H. Stephens, of Georgia, weighed but seventy- 
four pounds; yet he was always considered in the 
South as a man of weight. 

Mr. Stephens once severely worsted a gigantic 
Western opponent in debate. 

The big fellow, looking down on Stephens, burst 
out, "You ! why, I could swallow you whole." 

"If you did," answered the iatter, "you would have 



ELI EXP LA INS RE PA R TEE. 1 6 1 

more brains in your bowels than ever you had in your 
head." 

Wendell Phillips said hundreds of things that were 
so sharp that his audiences didn't know whether it was 
Phillips, lightning, or repartee. 

I met the grand old Abolitionist on the streets of 
Boston in 1866. He was going along faster than 
usual, and said he was on his way to Faneuil Hall, 
where there would probably be a very exciting meet- 
ing. The ex-rebels had shot into the negroes at the 
polls, and President Grant had called out the troops in 
New Orleans to suppress riots. There was a great 
Democratic crowd in the old historic hall, and it ap- 
peared dangerous for a Republican to attempt to 
speak. I entered in front, and just as I cast my eyes 
on the platform, I saw Mr. Phillips begin to ascend it 
from the speakers' entrance. A Democratic orator 
was speaking, but no sooner had Mr. Phillips' head 
appeared above the platform than the people began to 
shout, "Phillips, Phillips!" Very soon he was address- 
ing the audience, and endeavored to conciliate and pac- 
ify his hearers. 

"In all cases where any citizen, white or black, is in 
danger," he said, "it is the duty of the government to 
protect him." No sooner had he finished the sentence 
than a number of men began to hiss. 

The great orator paused a moment, and then an in- 
spired wrath took hold of him, his great eyes gleamed' 
and in a blast of irony he exclaimed : 

"Truth thrown into the caldron of hell would make 
a noise like that !" 

When the cheers had ceased, the silver-tongued orator 
showered down the following red-hot sentences : 



1 62 ELI PERKINS— THIRTY YEARS OF WIT. 

"In the South/' he said, "we have not only an army 
to conquer, but we have a state of mind to annihilate. 
When England conquered the Highlands, she held 
them — held them until she could educate them ; and 
it took a generation. That is just what we have to do 
with the South ; annihilate the old South, and put a 
new one there. You do not annihilate a thing by 
abolishing it. You must supply the vacancy." 

The mildest bit of repartee I know of occurred 
between the Poet Saxe and Oliver Wendell Holmes. 
They were talking about brain fever when Mr. Saxe 
remarked : 

"I once had a very severe attack of brain fever my- 
self." 

"How could you have brain fever?" asked Holmes, 
smiling. "It is only strong brains that have brain 
fever." 

"How did you find that out?" asked Saxe. 

The Scotch are always very blunt with their 
repartee : 

Sandy complained that he had got a ringing in his 
head. 

"Do ye ken the reason o' that?" asked Donald. 

"No." 

"I'll tell ye — it's because it's empty." 

"And ha'e ye never a ringing in your head?" asked 
the other. 

"No, never." 

"And do ye ken the reason — because it's cracked." 

The man who uses repartee is like the wasp ; he 
stings when he is attacked. It was so with Diogenes, 
Chateaubriand, and Charles Lamb. 

A dear friend was once expatiating to Talleyrand on 



ELI EXPLAINS REPAR TEE. 1 63 

his mother's beauty, when the mean wit said, "Then it 
must have been your father who was ugly." 

When some one said that Chateaubriand complained 
of growing deaf, Talleyrand replied: ''He thinks he is 
deaf because he no longer hears himself talked of." 

A well-known author exclaimed, "During my life I 
have been guilty of only one mistake." 

"Where will that end?" inquired Talleyrand. 

A friend of Mr. Blaine once asked Conkling if he 
would take the stump for Blaine in the campaign 
of '84. 

"I can't," said Conkling spitefully. "I have retired 
from criminal practice." 

Mr. Blaine got even with Conkling for this by tell- 
ing a story about Conkling's vanity. "One day," said 
Mr. Blaine, "when Conkling and I were friends, the 
proud New York senator asked Sam Cox whom he 
thought were the two greatest characters America 
ever produced?" 

"I should say," said Cox solemnly, "I should say 
the two most distinguished men in America have 
been General Washington and yourself." 

"Very true," said Conkling, "but I don't see why 
you should drag in the name of Washington." 

I witnessed a cutting rebuke and a sharp reply on the 
part of an American in Germany. The German officers 
before the Franco-Prussian war used to be arrogant 
and pedantic. The German army had not proved its 
prowess then, and the officers were sensitive. But since 
the war with France has proved that they are the best 
soldiers in the world, that sensitiveness has all gone. 
They are sure of their position and can afford to be 
magnanimous. The Heidelberg student, though, is 



1 64 ELI PERKINS— THIRTY YEARS OF WIT. 

still pompous, arrogant, and egotistical; painful to 
Democratic Americans. 

I was on the steamboat platform at Heidelberg a 
few years ago with a party of Americans. There was 
a good deal of jamming and crowding, and an American 
happened to crowd a Heidelberg student, a famous 
class duelist, when he drew himself up pompously, his 
scarred face all scowls, and exclaimed : 

"Sir, you are crowding; keep back, sir!'* 

"Don't you like it, sonny?" asked the American. 

"Sir!" scowled the student. 

"Don't you like it, sonny?" repeated the American 
derisively. 

The German gave one look full of pedantry and 
hatred, then thrusting his card in the American's face 
hissed out : 

"Allow me to tell you, sir, that you have insulted 
me, and that I am at your service — at any time and 
place !" 

"Oh, you are at my service, are you?" said the 
American. "Then just carry this satchel to the hotel 
for me !" 

I have had several tilts with General Butler during 
the last twenty years, although I am a great admirer 
of the man who gave the first order making old slaves 
contraband of war. That order of Butler's settled the 
question of slavery on this continent, and Lincoln's 
proclamation of freedom became a necessity. 

Even before the war I had written this parable on 
the general : 

Old Deacon Butler, of Lowell, had one son, Ben, 
who was very smart at everything, but the deacon 
£ould not tell what profession to give him, §0 one 



ELI EXPLAINS REPAR TEE. 1 65 

day he put the boy in a room with a Bible, an apple, 
and a dollar bill. 

* * If I find Ben reading the Bible when I return," 
said the deacon, "I shall make him a clergyman; if 
eating the apple, a farmer; and if interested in the 
dollar bill, a banker." 

"What was the result?" you ask. 

"Well, when the deacon returned he found his son 
sitting on the Bible with the dollar bill in his pocket, 
and the apple almost devoured." 

"What did he do with him?" 

"Why, he made him a politician, and is still running 
for governor of Massachusetts. Ben is still devouring 
that apple." 

During the war I set this little bit of satire afloat : 

General Butler went into a hospital in Washington 
not long since, to express sympathy with the patients. 

"What is the matter with you, my man?" asked the 
general, as he gazed at the man with a sore leg. 

"Oh, I've got gangrene, General." 

"Gangrene! why, that's a very dangerous disease, 
my man ; v-e-r-y d-a-n-g-e-r-o-u-s," said General Butler. 
"I never knew a man to have gangrene and recover. 
It always kills the patient or leaves him demented. 
I've had it myself!" 

Well, General Butler bided his time. He waited 
until he got me in front of him at a Grand Army 
dinner — got me surrounded and then bottled me up 
with his best story. 

After Chauncey Depew and Horace Porter had told 
some exaggerated stories, Butler arose in a very dig- 
nified manner and said : 

"Speaking of liars, Mr. Depew, I have the honor of 



1 66 ELI PERKINS— THIRTY YEARS OF WIT. 

knowing three of the greatest liars, the greatest living 
liars, in this world." 

"Who are they?" asked the venerable Sam Ward, 
as he dropped a chicken partridge to listen to the 
general. 

"Well, sir," said the general, as he scratched his 
head thoughtfully, "Mark Twain is one, and Eli 
Perkins is the other two!" 

I forgave General Butler for that story on account 
of the good story he told on the city of Philadelphia. 
This story has been attributed to a dozen different 
people, but Butler was the man who told it. "Oliver 
Wendell Holmes," says Butler, " happened to be seated 
next to George W. Childs at a Boston dinner. 

'* Speaking of Boston,' said Ben, 'she is a fine city, 
isn't she?' 

" 'Yes, Boston is a very compact and substantial 
city,' said Mr. Childs; 'but she is not so well laid out 
as Philadelphia.' 

" 'No,' said Ben, with his eyes more on a bias than 
usual, 'Boston is not so well laid out as Philadelphia, 
I admit that ; but she will be when she is as dead as 
Philadelphia.' " 

The staid New York Tribune came near jumping 
over into the realms of wit and repartee when it 
published this paragraph: 

Eli Perkins, who is a vestryman in an uptown church, in the ab- 
sence of a Sunday-school teacher, kindly offered to take her class 
in the Sabbath-school. After teaching the class four weeks Mr. 
Perkins was presented with a Bible by his class. People can draw 
their own inferences. 

A bright, though not very orthodox bit of repartee 
was made by Sam Jones to Elder Smitzer, who was 



ELI EXP LA INS RE PA R TEE. 1 6 7 

lecturing Sam for the sin of chewing tobacco. 
"Brother Jones," exclaimed Brother Smitzer, without 
stopping to ask any other question, "is it possible that 
you chew tobacco?" 

"I must confess I do," quietly replied Mr. Jones. 

"Then I would quit it, sir," energetically continued 
Brother Smitzer. "It is a very unclerical practice, 
and I must say a very uncleanly one. Tobacco ! Why, 
sir, even a hog would not chew it." 

"Brother Smitzer," responded his amused listener, 
"do you chew tobacco?" 

"I? No, sir!" he answered gruffly, with much 
indignation. 

"Then, pray, my dear brother," said Sam, "which is 
most like the hog, you or I?" 

"If your habits were as good as your logic, Sam 
Jones," said Brother Smitzer, smiling, "you would be 
saved in spite of your bad taste." 



ARTEMUS WARD. 



The Father of American Humor — Personal Reminiscences — Where Eli 
Perkins got his nom de plume — From the Maine Farm to Kensal 
Green — His original MSS. left to the Writer. 

1 FIRST met Artemus Ward in. Memphis, in the 
spring of 1865. He had just returned from his 
overland stage trip from California, and was making a 
lecture tour of the States. I little thought then that I 
should be called upon in 1876, by Geo. W. Carleton, to 
write his biography and edit a complete edition of his 
works. * 

On that occasion the humorist accompanied me to my 
plantation at Lake Providence, La., where I had 1700 
acres of cotton. I had previously been on General A. 
L. Chetlain's staff in Memphis. 

The negroes were a perpetual delight to Artemus; 
and they used to stand around him with staring eyes, 
and mouths wide open, listening to his seemingly serious 
advice. 

I could not prevail upon him to hunt or to join in any 
of the equestrian amusements with the neighboring 
planters, but a quiet fascination drew him to the ne- 
groes. Strolling through the " quarters," his grave 
words, too deep with humor for darky comprehension, 
gained their entire confidence. 

* The Complete Works of Artemus Ward (four volumes in. one), with 
his Mormon Lecture, and Biography by Eli Perkins. G. W. Carleton, 
New York ; and Chatto & Windus, London. 

168 



ARTEMUS WARD. 169 

One day he called upon Uncle Jeff, an Uncle-Tom- 
like patriarch, and commenced in his usual vein : 

"Now, Uncle Jefferson," he said, "why do you thus 
pursue the habits of industry? This course of life is 
wrong — all wrong — all a base habit, Uncle Jefferson. 
Now, try and break it off. Look at me — look at Mr. 
Landon, the chivalric young Southern plantist from 
New York; he toils not, neither does he spin; he pur- 
sues a career of contented idleness. If you only 
thought so, Jefferson, you could live for months with- 
out performing any kind of labor, and at the expiration 
of that time feel fresh and vigorous enough to com- 
mence it again. Idleness refreshes the physical organi- 
zation — it is a sweet boon. Strike at the roots of the 
destroying habit to-day, Jefferson. It tires you out ; re- 
solve to be idle; no one should labor; he should hire 
others to do it for him." And then he would fix his 
mournful eyes on Jeff and hand him a dollar, while the 
eyes of the wonder-struck darky would gaze in mute 
admiration upon the good and wise originator of the 
only theory which the darky mind could appreciate. 

As Jeff went away to tell the wonderful story to 
his companions, and backed it with the dollar as ma- 
terial proof, Artemus would cover his eyes, and bend 
forward on his elbows in a chuckling laugh. 

One of the queerest sights was to see his trunks 
spread along the hall outside of his room. Each trunk 
was fully labeled. One would be labeled, "A. Ward, 
his store close"; and another, "A. Ward, his Sunday 
suit." 

One evening I asked him to tell me about his child, 
hood up in Maine, and he said : 

"I was born up at Waterford, but afterward moved 



17° ELI PERKINS— THIRTY YEARS OF WIT. 

to Skowhegan. My father's name was Levi, and my 
mother's name was Caroline. I had four uncles in 
Waterford : Daniel, Mallory, Jabez,and Thaddeus." 

"Were you Puritans?" I asked. 

"Well," he said, "father's name was Levi, and we had 
a Moses and a Nathan in the family, so I think we must 
have come from Jerusalem. But," he continued 
thoughtfully, "my brother's name was Cyrus, and per- 
haps that made us Persians." 

I had many practical ideas about the plantation, and 
Artemus was constantly saying, during the visit : 

"You are a regular Eli Perkins kind of a man — you 
are. I think I'll call you Eli." 

An Eli Perkins kind of a man with Ward was some 
one with dry philosophical ideas, original and startling. 
After this he never addressed me by any other name. 
The name Eli Perkins seemed to give him infinite amuse- 
ment, and at Natchez and New Orleans it was a never 
ending source of pleasure, when the crowd called upon 
him, to turn around, smile, and say: 

"Allow me to introduce Mr. Eli Perkins, the chivalric 
young Southern plantist from — from New York." 

When I parted with Artemus at New Orleans he 
came to the gang-plank, smiled, and said loudly : 

"You know so much about farming, Eli, that I'm 
going to make you manager of my plantation up in 
Maine." 

And sure enough, he wrote this letter a month or so 
afterward, which appears in most of his books, and 
which caused me to take the name "Eli Perkins" as a 
nom de plume in 1871, when I wrote my first book, 
"Saratoga in 1901." 



ARTEMUS WARD. H l 

This was Ward's letter: 

New York, June 12, 1865. 
To the Farmers' Club, Cooper Institute. 

Gentlemen : I have been an honest farmer for some four 
years. My farm is in the interior of Maine. Unfortunately my 
lands are eleven miles from the railroad. Eleven miles is quite a 
distance to haul immense quantities of wheat, corn, rye, and oats; 
but as I haven't any to haul, I do not, after all, suffer much on that 
account. 

Two years ago I tried sheep-raising. 

I bought fifty lambs, and turned them loose on my broad and 
beautiful acres. 

It was pleasant on bright mornings, after coming back from a 
lecturing tour, to stroll leisurely out on to the farm in my dressing- 
gown, with a cigar in my mouth, and watch these innocent little 
lambs as they danced gayly o'er the hillside. 

One day my gentle shepherd, Mr. Eli Perkins, said, " We must 
have some shepherd dogs." 

I had no very precise idea as to what shepherd dogs were, but I 
assumed a rather profound look, and said : 

" We must, Eli. I spoke to you about this some time ago." 

I wrote to Boston for two shepherd dogs, and the dogs came 
forthwith. They were splendid creatures — snuff-colored, hazel- 
eyed, long-tailed, and shapely jawed. 

We led them proudly to the fields. 

'* Turn them in, Eli," I said. 

Eli turned them in. 

They went in at once, and killed twenty of my best lambs in 
about four minutes and a half. 

My friend had made a trifling mistake in the breed of these 
dogs. 

Eli Perkins was astonished, and observed : 

" Waal ! did you ever ? " 

I certainly never had. 

There were pools of blood on the green sward, and fragments of 
wool and raw lamb chops lay round in confused heaps. 

The dogs would have been sent to Boston that night, had they 



i7 2 ELI PERKINS—THIRTY YEARS OF WIT. 

not rather suddenly died that afternoon of a throat-distemper. It 
wasn't a swelling of the throat. It wasn't diphtheria. It was a 
violent opening of the throat, extending from ear to ear. 

Thus closed their life stories. Thus ended their interesting 
tails. 

I failed as a raiser of lambs. As a sheepist I was not a success. 

Last summer Mr. Perkins said, " I think we'd better cut some 
grass this season, sir." 

We cut some grass. 

To me the new mown hay is very sweet and nice. New mown 
hay is a really fine thing. It is good for man and beast. 

We hired four honest farmers to assist us, and I led them gayly 
to the meadows. 

I was going to mow, myself. 

I saw the sturdy peasants go round once ere I dipped my flash- 
ing scythe into the tall, green grass. 

" Are you ready ? " said E. Perkins. 

" I am here ! " 

" Then follow us ! " 

I followed them. 

Followed them rather too closely, evidently, for a white-haired 
old man, who immediately followed Mr. Perkins, called upon us to 
halt. Then, in a low, firm voice, he said to his son, who was just 
ahead of me, " John, change places with me. I hain't got long to 
live, anyhow. Yonder berryin' ground will soon have these old 
bones, and it's no matter whether I'm carried there with one leg 
off and ter'ble gashes in the other or not ! But you, John— you 
are young." 

The old man changed places with his son. A smile of calm 
resignation lit up his wrinkled face, as he said, " Now, sir, I am 
ready ! " 

" What mean you, old man ? " I said. 

" I mean that if you continue to bran'ish that blade as you have 

been bran'ishin' it, you'll slash h out of some of us before 

we're a hour older ! " 

There was some reason mingled with this white-haired old 
peasant's profanity. It was true that I had twice escaped mowing 
off his son's legs, and his father was, perhaps, naturally alarmed. 



ARTEMUS WARD. 1 73 

I went and sat down under a tree. " I never know'd a literary 
man in my life," I overheard the old man say, " that know'd any- 
thing." 

Mr. Perkins was not as valuable to me this season as I had fan- 
cied he might be. Every afternoon he disappeared from the field 
regularly, and remained about some two hours. He said it was 
headache. He inherited it from his mother. His mother was 
often taken in that way, and suffered a great deal. 

At the end of the two hours, Mr. Perkins would reappear with 
his head neatly done up in a large wet rag and say he " felt 
better." 

One afternoon it so happened that I soon followed the invalid to 
the house, and as I neared the porch I heard a female voice ener- 
getically observe, " You stop ! " It was the voice of the hired girl, 
and she added, " I'll holler for Mr. Brown ! " 

" Oh, no, Nancy ! " I heard the invalid E. Perkins soothingly 
say, " Mr. Brown knows I love you. Mr. Brown approves of it ! " 

This was pleasant for Mr. Brown ! 

I peered cautiously through the kitchen blinds, and, however 
unnatural it may appear, the lips of Eli Perkins and my hired girl 
were very near together. She said, " You shan't do so," and he 
do-soed. She also said she would get right up and go away and, 
as an evidence that she was thoroughly in earnest about it, she re- 
mained where she was. 

They are married now, and Mr. Perkins is troubled no more 
with the headache. 

This year we are planting corn. Mr. Perkins writes me that 
■' on accounts of no skare krows bein' put up krows cum and 
digged fust crop up but soon got nother in. Old Bisbee, who was 
frade youd cut his sons leggs of, Ses you bet go and stan up in 
feeld yrself with dressin gownd on & gesses krows will keep way. 
this made Boys in store larf. no More terday from Yours 
respecful, Eli Perkins." 

P. S. — Eli has done better since he got married. 

Artemus Ward. 

After Artemus died in London in 1867, I visited his 
grave in Waterford and talked with his mother, who af- 



174 ELI PERKINS—THIRTY YEARS OF WIT. 

terward wrote me several letters. I learned in Water- 
ford that Artemus was full of fun when a boy. His 
mother, from whom the writer received several letters, 
told me that Artemus was out very late one night at a 
spelling-bee, and came home in a driving snowstorm. 

"We had all retired," said Mrs. Browne, "and Arte- 
mus went around the house and threw snow-balls at his 
brother Cyrus's window, shouting for him to come down 
quickly. Cyrus appeared in haste, and stood shivering 
in his night-clothes. 

' 'Why don't you come in, Charles? The door is 
open.' 

'Oh,' replied Artemus, 'I could have gotten in all 
right, Cyrus; but I called you down because I wanted 
to ask you if you really think it is wrong to keep 
slaves.' " 

Charles received his education at the Waterford 
school, until family circumstances induced his parents 
to apprentice him to learn the rudiments of printing in 
the office of the Skowhegan Clarion, published some 
miles to the north of his native village. Here he 
passed through the dreadful ordeal to which a printer's 
"devil" is generally subjected. He always kept his 
temper; and his amusing jokes are even now related by 
the residents of Skowhegan. 

In the spring, after his fifteenth birthday, Charles 
Browne bade farewell to the Skowhegan Clarion ; and 
we next hear of him in the office of the Carpet-Bag, 
edited by B. P. Shillaber ("Mrs. Partington"). 

In these early years young Browne used to "set up" 
articles from the pens of Charles G. Halpine ("Miles 
O'Reilly") and John G. Saxe, the poet. Here he wrote 
his first contribution in a disguised hand, slyly put it into 



ARTEMUS WARD. 175 

the editorial box, and the next day enjoyed the pleasure 
of setting it up himself. The article was a description 
of a Fourth of July celebration in Skowhegan. The 
spectacle of the day was a representation of the battle 
of Yorktown, with George Washington and General 
Cornwallis in character. The article pleased Mr. Shil- 
laber, and Mr. Browne, afterward speaking of it, said : 
"I went to the theater that evening, had a good time 
of it, and thought I was the greatest man in Bos- 
ton." 

While engaged on the Carpet-Bag, Artemus closely 
studied the theater and courted the society of actors 
and actresses. It was in this way that he gained that 
correct and valuable knowledge of the texts and charac- 
ters of the drama which enabled him in after years to 
burlesque them so successfully. The humorous writ- 
ings of Seba Smith were his models, and the oddities of 
"John Phcenix" were his especial admiration: 

After leaving Boston, Artemus became a reporter and 
compositor in Tiffin, O., at four dollars a week. From 
there he went into the Toledo Commercial, and in 1858, 
when he was twenty-four years of age, Mr. J. W. Gray, 
of the Cleveland Plaindealer, secured him as local re- 
porter, at a salary of twelve dollars per week. Here 
his reputation first began to assume a national charac- 
ter, and it was here that they called him a "fool" when 
he mentioned the idea of taking the field as a lecturer. 
Speaking of this circumstance, while traveling down the 
Mississippi with the writer in 1865, Mr. Browne mus- 
ingly repeated this colloquy : 

Wise Man. "Ah! you poor, foolish little girl — here 
is a dollar for you." 

Foolish Little Girl. "Thank you, sir, but I have a 



176 ELI PERKINS— THIRTY YEARS OF WIT. 

sister at home as foolish as I am ; can't you give me a 
dollar for her?" 

In i860 the humorist became the editor of Vanity 
Fair in New York, succeeding Charles G. Leland. 

Speaking of his experience on Vanity Fair, Artemus 
said : 

"Comic copy is what they wanted for Vanity Fair ; 
I wrote some and it killed it. The poor paper got to 
be a conundrum and so I gave it up." 

After lecturing in Clinton Hall, December 23, 1862, 
Ward went to California to lecture. His lecture on 
"Babes in the Woods," took the Californians by storm. 
It consisted of a wandering batch of comicalities, touch- 
ing upon everything except the "Babes." Indeed, it 
was better described by the lecturer in London, when 
he said, "One of the features of my entertainment is, 
that it contains so many things that don't have any- 
thing to do with it." 

In the middle of his lecture, the speaker would hesi- 
tate, stop, and say: ''Owing to a slight indisposition, 
we will now have an intermission of fifteen minutes." 
The audience looked in utter dismay at the idea of 
staring at vacancy for a quarter of an hour, when, rub- 
bing his hands, the lecturer would continue: "But, 
ah — during the intermission I will go on with my lec- 
ture !" 

On returning from California on the overland stage, 
Artemus lectured in Salt Lake City. He took a deep 
interest in Brigham Young and the Mormons. The 
Prophet attended his lecture. When the writer lec- 
tured in the Mormon theater fifteen years afterward, 
Brigham Young was present.. The next day my wife 
and I were entertained at the Lion House, the home of 



ARTEMUS WARD. 177 

the Prophet, when he and Hiram Clausen gave me 
many reminiscences of Artemus Ward's visit. 

When I wrote the humorist's biography, Mr. Carle- 
ton gave me a trunk full of his old MSS., which I have 
been looking over to-day.* Before me is this sketch of 
Brigham Young in Artemus Ward's handwriting. It 
was written in 1862, while the war of the Rebellion was 
going on ; but after Joe Johnson's campaign against the 
Mormons. Any journalist will see, by his correct punc- 
tuation, that he was a man of culture. This litho- 
graphed sketch shows his character. It proves that he 
was once a type-setter. It is the best index to the cul- 
ture and technical knowledge of the humorist that 
could be given : 

The reader will see by Mr. Ward's diary that the 
Mormons were jealous of the national troops encamped 
at Salt Lake. 



<^rt^u*-C 



* A package of these Ward sketches, with autograph letters 
from President Harrison, the Prince of Wales, Lowell, Whittier, 
Holmes, Geo. W. Curtis, Cable, Talmage, Depew, General Sher- 
man, Cardinal Gibbons, and forty oihers were stolen from the Sixth 
Avenue elevated train after this was written. It is hoped that 
autograph collectors into whose hands they will come will com- 
municate with Mr. Landon. 



I7& ELI PERKINS— THIRTY YEARS OF WIT. 

fi- if/L^i^^ /t*£~~£ fi^&^Z ^~£~ t , 

f: ^42^y /*"*" r^, / fa**7 4 *" 
if U~ ^2H,^ t &*&«. fr^ 



ARTEMUS WARD. 179 

MCj, fA~#y£c /r>~ -^ ^ *£ 



l8o ELI PERKINS-THIRTY YEARS OF WIT. 



ARTEMUS WARD. i»i 

On his return from California Artemus wrote his lec- 
ture on the Mormons and delivered it throughout New 
England for one hundred nights, the trip netting him 
$8000. 

His life in America was a constant round of jolly 
revelry. His friends persecuted him with adoration 
and kindness. Wherever he lectured there was sure to 
be a knot of young fellows to gather around him, go 
home to his hotel, and spend the night in telling stories, 
drinking, and singing songs. Five years of such life 
made the humorist almost a physical wreck. 

In the spring of 1866, Charles Browne first timidly 
thought of going to Europe. Turning to Mr. Hing- 
ston one day, he asked : "What sort of a man is Al- 
bert Smith? Do you think the Mormons would be as 
good a subject to the Londoners as Mont Blanc was?" 
Then he said: "I should like to goto London and 
give my lecture in the same place. Can't it be done?" 

Well, he went to London, and became a lion at once. 

Scholars, wits, poets, and novelists came to him with 
extended hands, and his stay in London was one ova- 
tion to the genius of American wit. Charles Reade, the 
novelist, was his warm friend and enthusiastic admirer; 
and Mr. Andrew Halliday introduced him to the "Lit- 
erary Club," where he became a great favorite. Mark 
Lemon came to him and asked him to become a con- 
tributor to Punch, which he did. His Punch letters 
were more remarked in literary circles than any other 
current matter. There was hardly a club meeting or 
a dinner at which they were not discussed. "There 
was something so grotesque in the idea," said a corre- 
spondent, "of this ruthless Yankee poking among the re- 
vered antiquities of Britain, that the beef-eating British 



1 82 ELI PERKINS— THIRTY YEARS OF WIT. 

themselves could not restrain their laughter." The 
story of his Uncle William, who ''followed commercial 
pursuits, glorious commerce — and sold soap !" and his 
letters on the Tower and "Chowser," were palpable 
hits, and it was admitted that Punch had contained 
nothing better since the days of "Yellowplush." This 
opinion was shared by the Times, the literary reviews, 
and the gayest leaders of society. The publishers of 
Punch posted up his name in large letters over their 
shop in Fleet Street, and Artemus delighted to point 
it out to his friends. About this time Mr. Browne 
wrote to his friend, Jack Rider, of Cleveland: 

This is the proudest moment of my life. To have been as well 
appreciated here as at home, to have written for the oldest comic 
journal in the English language, received mention with Hood, with 
Jerrold and Hook, and to have my picture and my pseudonym as 
common in London as New York, is enough for 

Yours truly, 

A. Ward. 

Mr. Browne's first London lecture, on the Mormons, 
occurred in Egyptian Hall, November 13, 1866. It set 
England on fire. Crowds were turned away, but sick- 
ness came and his brilliant life soon ended. On Friday, 
the sixth week of his engagement, he broke down, the 
disappointed audience went away mournfully, and Mr. 
Browne's friends took him to the Isle of Jersey. Jer- 
sey doing him no good, he returned to London, died, 
and his remains were taken to Kensal Green from the 
rooms of Arthur Sketchley, Rev. M. D. Conway preach- 
ing his funeral sermon. The humorist was removed 
from Kensal Green by his American friends, and his 
body now sleeps by the side of his father, Levi Browne, 



ARTEMUS WARD. 183 

in the quiet cemetery at Waterford, Me. Upon the 
coffin is the simple inscription : 



CHARLES F. BROWNE, 

Aged 32 Years. 

Better known to the World as 
" Artemus Ward." 



I can say from personal knowledge, and E. P. Hing- 
ston, Richard H. Stoddard, and T. W. Robertson will 
agree with me, that Charles Farrar Browne was one of 
the kindest and most affectionate of men, and history 
does not name a man who was so universally beloved 
by all who knew him. It was remarked, and truly, that 
the death of no literary character since Washington 
Irving caused such general and widespread regret. 

In stature he was tall and slender. His nose was 
prominent — outlined like that of Sir Charles Napier, 
or Mr. Seward ; his eyes brilliant, small, and close 
together; his mouth large, teeth white and pearly; fin- 
gers long and slender; hair soft, straight, and blond; 
complexion florid; mustache large, and his voice soft 
and clear. In bearing, he moved like a natural born 
gentleman. In his lectures he never smiled — not even 
while he was giving utterance to the most delicious ab- 
surdities; but all the while the jokes fell from his lips 
as if he were unconscious of their meaning. While 
writing his lectures, he would laugh and chuckle to him- 
self continually. 

There was one peculiarity about Charles Browne — 
he never made an enemy. Other wits in other times 
have been famous, but a satirical thrust now and then 



1 84 ELI PERKINS— THIRTY YEARS OF WIT. 

has killed a friend. Diogenes was the wit of Greece, 
but when, after holding up an old dried fish to draw 
away the eyes of Anaximenes' audience, he exclaimed, 
"See how an old fish is more interesting than Anax- 
imenes," he said a funny thing, but he stabbed a friend. 
When Charles Lamb, in answer to the doting mother's 
question as to how he liked babies, replied, "B-b-boiled, 
madam, boiled!" that mother loved him no more; and 
when John Randolph said "thank you !" to his con- 
stituent, who kindly remarked that he had the pleasure 
of "passing" his house, it was wit at the expense of 
friendship. The whole English school of wits, with 
Douglas Jerrold, Hood, Sheridan, and Sydney Smith, 
indulged in repartee. They were parasitic wits. And 
so with the Irish, except that an Irishman is generally 
so ridiculously absurd in his replies as to excite only 
ridicule. "Artemus Ward" made you laugh and love 
him too. 

The wit of "Artemus Ward" and "Josh Billings" is 
distinctively American. Lord Karnes, in his "Ele- 
ments of Criticism," makes no mention of this species 
of wit, a lack which the future rhetorician should look 
to. We look in vain for it in the English language of 
past ages, and in other languages of modern time. It 
is the genus American. When Artemus says, in that 
serious manner, looking admiringly at his atrocious pic- 
tures, "I love pictures — and I have many of them — 
beautiful photographs — of myself," you smile; and 
when he continues, "These pictures were painted by 
the old masters : they painted these pictures and then 
they — they expired," you hardly know what it is that 
makes you laugh outright ; and when Josh Billings says 
jn his proverbs, wiser than Solomon's, "You'd better 



ART EM US WARD. 185 

not know so much than know so many things that ain't 
so," the same vein is struck, but the text-books fail to 
explain scientifically the cause of our mirth. 

The wit of Charles Browne is one of the most ex- 
alted kind. It is only scholars and those thoroughly 
acquainted with the subtlety of our language who fully 
appreciate it. His wit is generally about historical per- 
sonages like Cromwell, Garrick, or Shakespeare, or a bur- 
lesque on different styles of writing, like his French 
novel, when "hifalutin" phrases of tragedy come from 
the clodhopper who "sells soap, and thrice refuses a 
ducal coronet." 

Mr. Browne mingled the eccentric even in his busi- 
ness letters. Once he wrote to his publisher, Mr. G. 
W. Carleton, who had made some alterations in his 
MSS. : "The next book I write I'm going to get you 
to write." Again he wrote in 1863 : 

Dear Carl : You and I will get out a book next spring, which 
will knock spots out of all comic books in ancient or modern his- 
tory. And the fact that you are going to take hold of it convinces 
me that you have one of the most massive intellects of this or any 
other epoch. 

Yours, my pretty gazelle, 

A. Ward. 

When Charles F. Browne died he did not belong to 
America, for, as with Irving and Dickens, the English 
language claimed him. Greece alone did not suffer 
when the current of Diogenes' wit flowed on to death. 
Spain alone did not mourn when Cervantes, dying, left 
Don Quixote the "knight of la Mancha." When 
Charles Lamb ceased to tune the great heart of human- 
ity to joy and gladness, his funeral was in every Eng- 



1 86 ELI PERKINS— THIRTY YEARS OF WIT. 

lish and American household, and when Charles Browne 
took up his silent resting-place in the somber shades of 
Kensal Green, jesting ceased, and one great Anglo- 
American heart, 

Like a muffled drum went beating 
Funeral marches to his grave. 



BILL NYE IN LARAMIE. 



How he Introduced Perkins to an Audience — He Interviews an English 
Joker — He Writes his Biography for this Book. 

1 SHALL never forget my first lecture in Laramie, 
Wy. It was in 1878. It was then that Bill Nye 
was discovered. I discovered him. He was running 
his little newspaper called the Boomerang, and was 
having a terrible fight with an editor across the way. 
The other editor, George Sanders, was madly jealous 
of Nye. He would write ponderous editorials abusing 
Nye; then Nye would answer with a quaint, good- 
natured paragraph, making fun of his opponent, which 
would be copied into a thousand newspapers. This 
copying of Nye's articles made Sanders madder than 
ever. 

"The fact of it is," said Sanders, "this Nye is a fool. 
His stuff is all twaddle. Now look at my editorials," 
he said, as he pointed proudly to a double-leaded 
article on ' 'Southern Outrages," and "Coming Wars in 
Europe." " They are solid. They are dignified. You 
can see they are written by a scholar. Now look at 
Nye's paper! See what trash — and still they all copy 
him. It makes me sick. Look at this," he said, hold- 
ing up Nye's paper, and pointing to a paragraph round 
which he had drawn a lead-pencil mark: 

" Men may be rough on the exterior, but they can love, oh, so 
earnestly, so warmly, so truly, so deeply, so intensely, so yearn- 
ingly, so fondly, and so universally ! 

is? 



165 ELI PERKINS— THIRTY YEARS OF WIT. 

"Did you ever see anything so silly? And here's 
another: 

" ' What becomes of our bodies ? ' asks a soft-eyed scientist, and 
we answer in stentorian tones that they get inside of a red flannel 
undershirt as the maple turns to crimson and the sassafras to gold. 
Ask us something difficult, ethereal being. 

"And this," continued Sanders, as he grew red in 
the face, "is one of Nye's mean slurs of my dignified 
editorial on 'The Growth of Empire' : 

" Dignity does not draw. It answers in place of intellectual tone 
for twenty minutes, but after a while it fails to get there. Dignity 
works all right in a wooden Indian or a drum-major, but the man 
who desires to draw a salary through life, and to be sure of a visi- 
ble means of support, will do well to make some other provision 
than a haughty look and the air of patronage." 

"That's enough," I said; "that settles Nye. We 
can all see that he will never amount to anything." 

A look of inexpressible gratitude settled all over 
Sanders' face as I said this. 

That night Mr. Nye introduced me to the opera 
house audience. He did it in so sweet and amiable a 
manner that I was completely won over and regretted 
that I had agreed with Sanders. I shall never forget 
the modest and trembling manner in which Mr. Nye 
faced the audience, and commenced his introduc- 
tion : 

Ladies and Gentlemen : I am glad that it has devolved upon 
me to-night to announce that we are to have an interesting lecture 
on lying by one of the most distinguished — 1 — 1 — [There was a 
long pause, for Mr. Nye's inflection indicated that he had finished, 
and the audience roared with delight, so that it was some time 
before the sentence was concluded] lecturers from the East. 



BILL NYE IN LARAMIE. 189 

Mr. Nye continued : 

We have our ordinary country liars in Laramie ; but Mr. Perkins 
comes from the metropolis. Our everyday liars have a fine record. 
We are proud of them. But the uncultured liars of the prairie can- 
not be expected to cope with the gifted and more polished prevar- 
icators from the cultured East. Ladies and Gentlemen, permit me 
to introduce to you Eliar Perkins. 

"Ladies and Gentlemen," I said, in reply, "I feel 
justly flattered by your Laramie humorist's tribute to 
my veracity; but truly I am not as great a liar as Mr. 

Nye " and then I seemed to falter. The audience 

saw my dilemma and applauded, and finally I couldn't 
finish the sentence for some moments; but continuing, 
I said, "I am not as big a liar as Mr. Nye would have 
you think." 

A day or two after this I picked up The Boomerang, 
and read this paragraph : 

When Mr. Perkins was passing through Laramie, he said he was 
traveling for his wife's pleasure. 

" Then your wife is with you ? " suggested a Boomerang re- 
porter. 

" Oh, no ! " said Eli, " she is in New York." 

After the lecture the growing humorist confided in 
me and told me the story of his life. 

"I was born," he said, "on Moosehead Lake, Maine. 
We moved from Moosehead Lake when I was very 
young, and lived in the West among the rattlesnakes 
and Indians until I grew up. I practiced law for 
about a year, but," he added, without changing a 
muscle, "nobody knew much about it; I kept it very 
quiet. I was Justice of the Peace, in Laramie, for six 
years." 



19° ELI PERKINS— THIRTY YEARS OF WIT. 

"Did you ever marry any one?" 

"Oh, yes; I married my wife, and after that I used 
to marry others, and then try them for other offenses. " 

The attention of the public was first called to the 
humorist's writings on account of his vigorous English. 
His language was of the Wild West order. For ex- 
ample : Some one asked the editor of The Boomerang 
the question, "What is literature?" 

"What is literature!" exclaimed Bill, half con- 
temptuously, pointing to the columns of The Boome- 
rang, "What is literature! Cast your eye over these 
logic-imbued columns, you sun-dried savant from the 
remote precincts. Drink at the never-failing Boome- 
rang springs of forgotten lore, you dropsical wart of a 
false and erroneous civilization. Read our 'Address to 
Sitting Bull,' or our 'Ode to the Busted Snoot of a 
Shattered Venus de Milo,' if you want to fill up your 
thirsty soul with high-priced literature. Don't go 
around hungering for literary pie while your eyes are 
closed and your capacious ears are filled with bales of 
hay." 

I asked Mr. Nye that night about his politics. 
"Well," he said, "I think I am a celluloid Republican." 

"But what do you think of the Democratic party?" 

"The Democratic party?" he repeated. "Why, a 
Democrat keeps our drug store over there, and when a 
little girl burned her arm against the cook stove, and 
her father went after a package of Russia salve, this 
genial drug store Democrat gave her a box of 'Rough 
on Rats.' What the Democratic party needs," said 
Mr. Nye, "is not so much a new platform, as a car-load 
of assorted brains that some female seminary had left 
over," 



BILL NYE IN LARAMIE. 19 1 

An Englishman came into my room just then and 
commenced talking with Mr. Nye about English and 
American humor. 

"And now, Mr. Nye," he said, "what do you think 
of the jokes in our London Punch ? " 

"The average English joke," said Mr. Nye, who 
wished to be polite, "has its peculiarities. A sort of 
mellow distance. A kind of chastened reluctance. A 
coy and timid, yet trusting, though evanescent in- 
tangibility, which softly lingers in the untroubled air, 
and lulls the tired senses to dreamy rest, like the sub- 
dued murmur of a hoarse jackass about nine miles up 
the gulch." 

"Possibly; possibly," said the Englishman. 

"He must be a hardened wretch, indeed," continued 
Mr. Nye, "who has not felt his bosom heave and the 
scalding tear steal down his furrowed cheek after he has 
read an English joke. There can be no hope for the 
man who has not been touched by the gentle, pleading, 
yet all-potent, sadness embodied in the humorous para- 
graph of the true Englishman." 

"In my opinion," said the Englishman haughtily, 
''the humor of the United States, if closely examined, 
will be found to depend, in a great measure, on the as- 
cendency which the principle of utility has gained over 
the imaginations of a rather imaginative people." 

"Just so," replied Bill, warming up to the issue, 
"just so; and, according to my best knowledge, the hu- 
mor of England, if closely examined, will be found just 
about ready to drop over the picket fence into the 
arena, but never quite making connections. If we scan 
the English literary horizon, we will find the humorist 
up a tall tree, depending from a sharp knot thereof by 



I9 2 ELI PERKINS— THIRTY YEARS OF WIT. 

the slack of his overalls. He is just out of sight at the 
time you look in that direction. He always has a man 
working in his place, however. The man who works in 
his place is just paring down the half sole and newly 
pegging a joke that has recently been sent in by the 
foreman for repairs." 

"I dare say — I dare say it is possibly so," gasped the 
Englishman. 

During the preparation of my " Kings of Platform 
and Pulpit," published by Belford Clark & Co., Chicago, 
Mr. Nye kindly sent me the following note, which gives 
the true history of his family: 

Dear Eli : You ask me how I came to adopt the nom de 
plume of Bill Nye, and I can truthfully reply that I did not do so 
at all. 

My first work was done on a Territorial paper in the Rocky 
Mountains some twelve years ago, and was not signed. The 
style, or rather the lack of it, provoked some comment and two or 
three personal encounters. Other papers began to wonder who 
was responsible, and various names were assigned by them as the 
proper one, among them Henry Nye, James Nye, Robert Nye, etc., 
and a general discussion arose, in which I did not take a hand. 
The result was a compromise, by which I was christened Bill Nye, 
and the name has clung to me. 

I am not especially proud of the name, for it conveys the idea to 
strangers that I am a lawless, profane, and dangerous man. Peo- 
ple who judge me by the brief and bloody name alone, instinct- 
ively shudder and examine their firearms. It suggests daring, 
debauchery, and defiance to the law. Little children are called in 
when I am known to be at large, and a day of fasting is announced 
by the governor of the State. Strangers seek to entertain me by 
showing me the choice iniquities of their town. Eminent crimi- 
nals ask me to attend their execution and assist them in accepting 
their respective dooms. Amateur criminals ask me to revise their 
work and suggest improvements. 

All this is the cruel result of an accident, for I am not that kind 



BILL NYE IN LARAMIE. 193 

of a man. Had my work been the same, done over the signature 
of " Taxpayer " or " Vox Popidi," how different might have been 
the result ! Seeking, as I am, in my poor, weak way, to make folly 
appear foolish, and to make men better by speaking disrespect- 
fully of their errors, I do not deserve to be regarded, even by 
strangers, as a tough or a terror, but as a plain, law-abiding 
American citizen, who begs leave to subscribe himself, 
Yours for the public weal, 

Edgar Wilson Nye. 



CHILDREN'S WIT AND WISDOM. 



They Make us Laugh and Cry — Child Theology — Ethel's Funny 
Blunders. 

LITTLE children often say very wise things. One 
night Ethel's mother went to the great Charity 
Ball, taking her maid with her and leaving little Ethel 
all alone. When her mother returned she said : 

" Ethel, did you say your prayers last night?" 

"Yes, mamma, I said 'em all alone." 

"But who did you say them to, Ethel, when your 
nurse was out with me?" 

"Well, mamma," said little Ethel, "when I went to 
bed I looked around the house for somebody to say my 
prayers to, and there wasn't nobody in the house to say 
'em to, and so I said 'em to God. Did I did wrong?" 

"No, no, no, Ethel!" and then tears of joy almost 
came to her mother's eyes. 

Ethel loved her dear old grandmother, and never for- 
got her. 

One day in the country, at her grandmother's, she 
was carrying a basket of eggs, when she tumbled down 
and broke them. 

"O Ethel!" cried all the country children, "won't 
you catch it when your mother sees those broken eggs. 
Won't you, though!" 

"No, I won't tach it, either," said Ethel. "I won't 
tach it at all. I'z dot a dranmother!" 

194 



CHILDREN'S WIT AND WISDOM. 195 

Ethel used to make a good many blunders that made 
us all laugh. She couldn't understand why we 
laughed, but when she grows up and reads this book 
she will know. When some little girls called on her 
one day she was quite troubled. 

"Oh, dear!" she said, " I do have so many cares. 
Nothing but trouble all the time." 

"What has happened now, Ethel?" asked her sym- 
pathetic playfellow. 

"Why, yesterday a little baby sister arrived, and papa 
is on a journey. Mamma came very near being gone 
too. I don't know what I should have done if mamma 
hadn't been home to take care of it!" 

Ethel was so honest, and told everything she thought 
so naturally, that we all liked to question her just to 
hear her answer. She used to play sometimes in the 
Sabbath school, but Uncle Harry Groesbeck was the 
superintendent, and he loved all the children so that 
he couldn't correct them. One day, however, she had 
been very quiet. She sat up prim and behaved herself 
so nicely that, after the recitation was over, the teacher 
remarked : 

"Ethel, my dear, you were a very good little girl to- 
day." 

"Yes'm. I couldn't help being dood. I dot a tif 
neck!" 

But the funniest thing was when she went to her first 
party, and one of the little Groesbeck boys kissed her. 

"O Ethel, I'm ashamed to think you should let 
a little boy kiss you !" said her mother. 

"Well, mamma, I couldn't help it," said Ethel. 

"You couldn't help it!" exclaimed her mother. 

"No, mamma. You see Harry and I were dancing 



I9 6 ELI PERKINS— THIRTY YEARS OF WIT 

the polka. Harry had to stand up close to me, and all 
at once his lip slipped and the tiss happened." 

Many things that are plain to grown people are very 
mysterious to children. They were mysterious to old 
people once. Think of the first time a child sees a tree 
in blossom, or the big new moon come up, or the first 
gray hair, or the sweet baby in the coffin ! 

I remember the first time Ethel saw a gray-haired 
lady. It was at Saratoga. She toddled up to the 
beautiful Mrs. Robert Cutting, whose white hair was 
the wonder of the Springs, and, smoothing her little 
hand cautiously over the old lady's beautiful silver 
tresses, she said : 

"Why, ou has dot such funny hair — ou has." Then, 
pausing a moment, she looked up and inquired, "What 
made it so white?" 

"Oh, the frosts of many winters turned it white, my 
little girl," replied the old lady. 

"Didn't it hurt ou?" asked the little thing, in child- 
ish amazement. 

Oh, the puzzling questions of these children! 

"Papa," commenced little Ethel, "does the sausage 
come out of his hole on Candlemas Day and look around 
for its shadow, so as to make an early spring? Ma 
says it does." 

"Why, darling, what are you talking about?" I asked, 
looking up from my writing. "It's the ground hog 
that comes out of its hole, not the sausage." 

"Well, papa," said Ethel, opening her eyes, "isn't 
sausage ground hog?" 

One of our good old clergymen asked a knotty ques- 
tion of the Sabbath-school class. 



CHILDREN'S WIT AND WISDOM. i 97 

"What is it?" he asked, "to bear false witness against 
thy neighbor?" 

"It's telling falsehoods about them," said little 
Emma. 

"Partly right, and partly wrong," said the clergyman. 

"I know," said Ethel, holding her little hand high up 
in the air. "It's when nobody did anything and some- 
body went and told of it," and a professor of theology 
couldn't have answered it more correctly. 

And how deeply in earnest some children will get, 
and what imaginations they have ! 

Little Edna Mapleson came to see Ethel one day 
and I heard them talking up in the little playroom. 

"When I grow up," said Ethel, with a dreamy, imag- 
inative look, "I'm going to be a school teacher." 

"Well, I'm going to be a mamma and have six chil- 
dren," said Edna. 

"Well, when they come to school to me I'm going to 
whip 'em, whip 'em, whip 'em" (with crescendo into- 
nation). 

"You mean thing!" exclaimed Edna, as the tears 
came into her eyes, "what have my poor children 
ever done to you?" 

One day Ethel, who is very proud of her voice, said 
proudly : 

"Edna, what would you do if you had a voice like 
me?" 

"Well," said Edna, "I 'spose I'd have to put up 
with it !" 

Ethel, like all little girls, likes to sit up late nights. 
One night her mother, to persuade her, used a little 
argument. She said : 



I9 8 ELI PERKINS— THIRTY YEARS OF WIT. 

"You know, Ethel, the little chickens always go to 
bed at sundown." 

"Yes, I've seen them, mamma; and the old hen, their 
mother, always goes with them." 

I remember when Ethel's mother took her to the 
first wedding. The little child was very observing. 
When she got home her mother said : 

"Now, Ethel, do you remember all about the cere- 
mony?" 

"Yes, mamma." 

"Does my little girl remember the words?" 

"Yes, every word, mamma." 

"And what did the preacher say?" 

"He said, 'Ye have now entered the holy band of 
hemlock — no, padlock — and you twine are now one — 
one fish.' " 

"But, mamma," she asked afterward, "why did the 
preacher talk about his ears so much?" 

"Why he didn't say anything about his ears, Ethel." 

"Why, yes, mamma, he kept saying, 'Oh, my hear- 
ers!' Didn't he mean his ears?" 

But oh, the love of the sweet innocent children ! 

It was a sweet love saying, and worthy of Him who 
took little children up. 

Little Philip fell downstairs one day and injured his 
face so seriously that for a long time he could not 
speak. When he did open his lips, however, it was not 
to complain of pain. Looking up at his mother, he 
whispered, trying to smile through his tears : 

"I'm pretty glad 'twasn't my little sister!" 



THOSE WICKED, WICKED BOYS! 



Their First Boots and First Pockets — That Naughty Uncle William — 
Grandma Loves them and Grandpa makes a Fool of Himself. 

BOYS' wit and blunder are so different from girls' ! 
Girls are sweet and confiding, while boys are 
robust and sometimes cruel in their answers. The fact 
is, boys are boys, and girls are girls. Sometimes I 
think our little Johnnie, Ethel's brother, is positively 
wicked. 

One evening when Johnnie was saying his prayers he 
broke out : 

"Oh, I do so wish I had a little pug dog!" 

"Had a what, Johnnie?" exclaimed his mother. 

"Why, a little pug dog, mamma. I do want one so 
much." 

"Why, what does mamma's darling want one of 
those ugly brutes for? Why could you want it, 
Johnnie?" 

"I want it because I know where I could sell his skin 
for fifteen dollars to a dog-stuffer, by ginger!" 

Where Johnnie got that "by ginger" we never knew, 
but after his mother had scolded him a little about 
using such words, she suggested that he finish his even- 
ing prayer, which he did, praying: 

"Oh, Lord, bless the baby and make him so he can't 
cry. Bless brother Bill and make him as good a boy as 
I am. Good-by, Lord. I'm going to the circus in the 



200 ELI PERKINS— THIRTY YEARS OF WIT. 

morning. Amen." Then, as if he had forgotten some- 
thing, Charley hollered out: "Oh, Lord, don't forget 
Bill." 

The boy comes out the strongest in the youth on the 
possession of the first pair of boots or pants with big 
pockets in them. It's the pockets that make a boy 
jump from a boy to a man in an hour. When Johnnie 
put on his first trousers he was very proud. He strutted 
up and down in front of his mother almost crazy with 
delight. Then he burst out : 

Oh, mamma, pants makes me feel so grand ! Didn't 
it make you feel grand when " But an awful con- 
sciousness came over him that this bliss had never been 
shared by his mother, and he laid his wee, chubby hand 
pityingly against her cheek, saying pathetically : 

"Poor mamma! poor mamma!" 

The question is often asked what makes our dear lit- 
tle' baby boy so rude? I can answer that the boy's 
uncle is generally to blame. It amuses the uncle and 
he does not think that he is really spoiling the 
boy. 

Now our little Johnnie was especially beloved by his 
Uncle William. Still his uncle used to tease him a 
good deal and teach him all kinds of nonsense rhymes 
just to plague his mother. One day I was telling the 
children about Satan. I told them that Satan was a 
wicked tempter and that is why our Saviour said, "Get 
thee behind me, Satan." 

"Now," said I, "can any of you children tell me any- 
thing about Satan?" 

"Johnnie can," said Ethel. 

"Well, Johnnie," I said, "you can stand up and tell 
us what you know about Satan." 



THOSE WICKED, WICKED BOYS ! 201 

Then Johnnie arose proudly and repeated in a boyish 
key : 

Now I lay me down to sleep, 

I pray the Lord my soul to keep ; 

If I die before I wake, 

It'll puzzle Satan to pull me straight. 

"Why, Johnnie," I said in amazement, "did your 
mother teach you that?" 

"No, but Uncle William did; and he taught me 'by 
ginger,' too !" 

Oh, this wicked, wicked Uncle William. 

Boys are usually shrewder than girls. They will 
show deep diplomacy in order to gain a point. One 
morning Johnnie climbed up into his grandmother's lap 
and showed great affection. 

"Gran 'ma," he said, as he twined his arm lovingly 
around her neck, "how old are you?" 

"About sixty-six," said the grandmother. 

"You'll die soon, won't you, gran'ma?" 

"Yes, dear, I expect to." 

"And when I die, gran'ma, can I be buried 'side of 
you? 

"Yes, dear," said she, as her heart warmed toward 
the little one, whom she folded closer in her arms. 

"Gran'ma," softly whispered the little rogue, "gimme 
ten cents." 

One day Johnnie was sliding down the banisters and 
making a great noise in the hall when his grandmother 
came to the head of the stairs and said : 

"Boys, boys! I wouldn't slide down those banisters 
— I would not do it." 

"Why, gran'ma, you can't," said little Charley dis- 
dainfully, as he picked himself up from the hall floor. 



202 ELI PERKINS— THIRTY YEARS OF WIT. 

Yes, Johnnie is a sweet child, and loved his mother, 
but the boy in him was always breaking out. When 
his mother got sick he came and stood by the bed, 
his great big eyes all full of tears, and said : 

"Oh, dear mamma, I hope 'ou won't die till the circus 



comes 



Johnnie's sister Ethel had been cautioned when they 
went up to their grandmother not to take the last egg, 
the nest egg, out of the nest. One morning, however, 
Ethel got it, and Johnnie came into a parlor full of com- 
pany screaming, in a high tenor voice : 

"Oh, grandma ! Ethel's got the egg the old hen mea- 
sures by!" 

Children often stumble into an exceedingly good 
joke. I think this is the best one I know of. The 
teacher was questioning the arithmetic class. 

"Boys," he said, "before slates were in use, how did 
the people multiply?" 

"I know, thir," said Johnnie, "I read it in my gog'fry 
this morning; they 'multiplied on the face of the 
earth.' " 

"Right, Johnnie," said the teacher. "And now, 
Joseph," he added, addressing another boy, "why is it 
that Johnnie can multiply so much quicker than 
you? 

"Because 'fools multiply very rapidly,' thir." 

Johnnie's first composition on dogs ran as follows: 

One time there was a feller bot a dog of a man in the market, 
and the dog it was a biter. After it had bit the feller four or five 
times he threw a closline over its neck and led it back to the dog 
man in the market, and he said to the dog man, the feller did. 
" Ole man, dident you use to have this dog? " The dog man he 
luked at the dog, and then he thot awhile and then he said, " Well, 



THOSE WICKED, WICKED BOYS! 203 

yes, I had him about haf the time and the other haf he had me." 
Then the feller he was fewrious mad, and he said, " Wat did you 
sell me such a dog as thisn for ? " And the old man he spoke up 
and sed, "For four dollars and seventy 5 cents, loffle money." 
Then the feller he guessed he wude go home if the dog was willing. 



STORY-TELLING CLERGYMEN. 



Clerical Anecdotes by Dr. Collyer, Lyman Abbott, Beecher, and Prof. 
Swing — Special Prayer, Baptism, and Close Communion Anecdotes — 
A Clerical Convention for Real Solid Fun. 

I CAME from an orthodox family, where the clergy- 
man was always a welcome guest. Then I have 
been thrown with clergymen all my life. My room- 
mate in college was a young clergyman, and many a 
time I've gone off with him to the schoolhouses and 
country churches to assist him in the service. I really 
believe the mistake of my life has been in not being a 
clergyman myself. I have virtue enough, and imagina- 
tion and fancy, and all I really lack is the license to 
preach. 

I have spent many hours listening to sweet clerical 
stories from Dr. Collyer, Dr. Swing, Beecher, Talmage, 
Sam Jones, Chapin, and Dr. Potter. When I want to 
hear the purest wit and humor I go to clerical conven- 
tions and hear the best and purest of fun drop out from 
original fountains. In a recent Union College lecture, 
I said : 

"The clerical anecdote should be as pure as a parable, 
and should be told, like the parable, to illustrate a 
point. The parables of the Bible are really a succes- 
sion of anecdotes. They never happened. They were 
simply told to illustrate some doctrine or point. When 
our Saviour was preaching the new doctrine of 'love 



STORY-TELLING CLERGYMEN, 205 

thy neighbor as thyself,' — a certain lawyer asked, 'Who 
is my neighbor?' To illustrate this our Saviour told 
the parable or anecdote of the man who went down 
to Jericho and fell among thieves. Then there was 
the anecdote of the sower, and of the eleventh-hour 
man in the vineyard. 

"The child-stories of Moody are sweet parables. 

"What parable can be sweeter than the little child 
story? 

4 'Papa,' asked a little girl, whose father had become 
quite worldly and given up family prayer, ' I say, papa, 
is God dead?' 

' 'No, my darling; why do you ask that?' 
' 'Why, papa, you never talk to him now as you used 
to do.' 

"These words haunted him until he was reclaimed." 

Children's stories are often very amusing, and their 
weird imagination will give you a long chase if you try 
to keep up with it. 

One day I was trying to explain to little Ethel some- 
thing about Wendell Phillips' great lecture on "The 
Lost Arts." 

"Lost tarts," she said. "Did they ever find them?" 

"No, Ethel," I said, "'The Lost Arts'— A-R-T-S" 
(spelling it out). 

"You know, Ethel, that Mr. Phillips has proved that 
many arts have been lost. He says they had steam en- 
gines in Egypt ; the Phoenicians made beautiful glass- 
ware and used the telephone, and " 

"But, papa," broke in Ethel, "we surely have made 
improvements in some things. There's been a great im- 
provement in prayers." 

"Why, my child, what do you mean?" 



206 ELI PERKINS— THIRTY YEARS OF WIT. 

"Why, I can say the Lord's Prayer in the Bible in 
two minutes, and Elder Smitzer's prayer this morning 
was — why, it was ten minutes long!" 

Beecher, like most clergymen, was fond of telling a 
good story to illustrate a doctrinal point. He illus- 
trated these points with a parable. I remember one 
day how the great Brooklyn preacher told his close com- 
munion parable to a party of Baptist ministers. He 
called it the parable of the Close Communionists. 

"One night," said Beecher, "I had a sweet dream 
and floated away to heaven. Heaven was very beauti- 
ful with angels and pearly gates and crowds of happy 
Christians. There were Presbyterians and Methodists 
in happy communion, and Episcopalians singing hymns 
with Campbellites — all so happy, but I could not see a 
Baptist. I looked all around, but not one in sight. 
Finally I saw St. Peter floating along on a cherub, and 
asked him about our missing brethren. 

' 'It makes me sad,' I said, 'to see no Baptists here/ 
' 'Oh, we have Baptists here — plenty of them/ said 
St. Peter, 'but they are off on a leave of absence to- 
day. They've just gone over to that cistern, all by 
themselves, to hold close communion.' " 

Dr. Lyman Abbott, who has succeeded Beecher in 
Plymouth Church, is a strong believer in the doctrine 
that baptism means sprinkling and not immersion, and 
delights in telling this parable on the immersionists, as 
much as Beecher delighted in telling his story on the 
close communionists: 

"One of my parishioners," said the doctor, "came to 
me and told me that he dreamed that a Baptist friend 
of his died and went to heaven." 

"Well, what did he see there?" I asked. 



STORY-TELLING CLERGYMEN. 207 

"He saw St. Peter at the gate, and beyond him, 
through a doorway surrounded with glaring lights, and 
smelling of brimstone, was the devil." 

''What do you want?' asked St. Peter of the new 
arrival. 

' 'I want to come in, : replied the immersionist. 

" 'Well, who are you?' 

" Tm a Baptist minister.' 

' 'A Baptist!' repeated St. Peter, a little puzzled. 
'A Baptist, eh? Well, what do you Baptists do? 
We didn't have any Baptists in my time, when I was 
Pope.' 

" 'Why, we baptize people.' 

" 'Baptize 'em, do you? What in?' 

'"Why, water.' 

"'What, all over?' 

" 'Yes, clear under.' 

" 'But suppose it's cold?' 
; 'Why, down they go right through the ice.' 

"The devil happened to overhear the word ice, and 
came forward, rubbing his hands in great glee. 

' 'What did you say about ice?' he asked, smiling. 

' 'Why, we baptize people through the ice/ 

' 'But suppose it's forty below zero?' 
' 'Down they go, all covered with icicles.' 
'That'll do,' interrupted the devil; 'you just take 
my place; you've got something worse than fire.'" 

If you want to hear good clerical anecdotes, I say, you 
must go to a Baptist, Methodist, or Presbyterian conven- 
tion, and, if there are any really good jokes, the good 
old Catholic priest won't be far away. They all like 
these jokes, and it is about the only recreation the 
clergy have. Then they know, as every man in the 



208 ELI PERKINS— THIRTY YEARS OF WIT. 

convention is a bright thinker, that no one will put a 
misconstruction on their stories. 

At the last Baptist convention in New York they 
were talking about taking up collections, when this 
story came out : 

The Rev. Dr. Judson is pastor of a large con. 
gregation in middle New York. His hearers are 
among the well-to-do-people in the city, but are not 
celebrated for generosity in supporting the church. 
The good preacher had been trying to get the poor peo- 
ple to come to his church, and recently, through the 
local columns of the city papers, he extended to them 
a cordial invitation to attend. 

At the close of the service, recently, he said : 

"Brethren, I have tried to reach the poor of New 
York and induce them to come to our church and break 
with us the bread of life. I infer from the amount of 
the collection just taken — $7.35 — that they have come." 

Since then Dr. Judson has built and paid for a mag- 
nificent memorial church to his father, the noted mis- 
sionary. 

The Rev. Dr. Grinnell, speaking of worldly rich men 
in the church, said that in his Green Bay congregation 
there was a rough but generous lumberman who shocked 
everybody with his plain talk ; but they all bore with 
him on account of his kind heart and lovely family. 
Sometimes he would even say, damn it. One day the 
clergyman remonstrated with him : 

"Why not leave out the expletives, Mr. Johnson?" 
he said. 

"Well, 'damn it,' I say what I mean, and I believe 
in calling a spade a spade." 

"Yes, that's right," said the clergyman, "I want you 



STORY-TELLING CLERGYMEN. 209 

to call a spade a spade, but it pains us to hear you call 
it a d — d old shovel." 

How time changes ! Many and many years ago Dr. 
judson and Dr. Grinnell were classmates of mine in col- 
lege. We called them Eddy and Zelotese, then. 

Everybody knows that Robert Collyer, the black- 
smith preacher, is a strict temperance man, but still he 
likes a good dinner. English roast beef and plum 
pudding are his favorite dishes. 

The doctor told me that one of his best dinners was 
almost spoiled by a joke. 

"But a joke ought to spice a dinner," I said. 

"It did spice this dinner, Eli, and a little too much," 
said the doctor. 

Dr. Collyer was dining one evening at Delmonico's, 
and had arrived at the cheese stage of his repast. A 
delightful piece of Roquefort was set before him, ripe, 
vivacious, self-mobilizing. There is nothing Collyer 
likes better than a lively cheese, and he had just trans- 
ferred a spoonful of the delicacy in question to his plate, 
when Henry Bergh, sitting at a neighboring table, 
sprang to his feet with a cry of horror, clutched his 
wrist with an iron grasp, and exclaimed : 

"Hold, monster! Never shall you swallow a mouth- 
ful of that cheese in my presence." 

"And why not?" inquired the doctor, in perplexed 
amazement. 

"Because, cruel man, I am a member of the Society 
for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, and I will 
not sit by calmly and see those innocent insects tor- 
tured." 

The doctor tells a good many anecdotes at his own 
expense, but they are all as pure as our Saviour's para- 



2IO ELI PERKINS— THIRTY YEARS OF WIT. 

bles. One day he was talking to a good old colored 
man down in Kentucky. Mr. Collyer always wears his 
white clerical tie, so the conversation was naturally 
about preachers. 

"So, Uncle Jack," said Dr. Collyer, "you don't 
much believe in the idea that men are called to 
preach." 

''Wall, sah, de Lawd mout call some niggers ter 
preach, but it sorter 'peers ter me dat whar de Lawd 
calls one old man, laziness calls er dozen. Nine 
nigger preachers outen ten is de lazies' pussens in de 
worl', sah." 

"How do you know, Uncle Jack?" 

"Case I'se a preacher merse'f, sah." 

"I tell you what, Brudder Collyer," continued Uncle 
Jack, "we preachers must wuck with energy, ef we 
wucker 'tall. Scriptah says, 'Wotsomever you hastest 
fer to do you oughter dust it wid all yo' hawt an' mine 
an' stren'th.' An' above all things, doan pronasticate." 

"Don't whaticate, Uncle Jack? What do you 
mean?" asked the doctor. 

"I mean doan pronasticate, Brudder Collyer. Doan 
put off tell nex' week whatchah orter done lass year. 
Time, Brudder Collyer, is a mighty hahd hoss to 
head. Tharfo' it behoofs you, as Scriptah says, to 
ketch him by the fetlock ef you wantah come undah 
de wiah 'fo' he does." 

Bishop Ames once told me a parable to illustrate how 
guarded some preachers are about preaching against 
such sins as intemperance and card-playing. "They 
are afraid," said the Bishop, "of offending some one in 
the congregation. They remind me of a good old 
colored preacher in Missouri in slave times. He was 



STORY-TELLING CLERGYMEN. 211 

a powerful preacher, but avoided all doubtful issues. 
One day I said to him : 

' 'Pompey, I hear you are a great preacher?' 

' 'Yes, Bruddah Ames, de Lord do help me powerful 
sometimes.' 

1 'Well, Pompey, don't you think the negroes some- 
times steal little things on the plantation?' 

' Tse mighty 'fraid dey does; I'se mighty 'fraid dey 
does, Brudder Ames.' 

1 'Then, Pompey, I want you to preach a good 
square sermon to the negroes about stealing.' 

"After a brief reflection, Pompey replied : 

'You see, Brudder Ames, dat wouldn't never do, 
'cause 'twould t'row such a col'ness ober de meetin." 

"The fact is," said the Bishop, "thousands of sinners 
go unrebuked because our milk-and-water preachers 
don't want to throw a 'coolness over the meeting.' " 

The Bishop was right. As I once said before the 
Chelsea (Mass.) Y. M. C. A., the unrepentant sinner 
outside of the Church does love a positive, forcible 
preacher. The preacher's business is morality, and I 
want him to act morally, think morally, and preach mor- 
ally. I want no compromises in religion. I want my 
preacher to go for the prohibition of all sin, including 
whisky and tobacco. I want no clergyman to preach 
temperance to me in the church and smoke Havana 
cigars and drink beer at home. High license belongs 
to the politician, absolute prohibition to the clergy- 
man. 

Sam Jones is not elegant, but he is certainly positive 
and forcible. When I asked him what he thought of 
a high license preacher like Dr. Crosby, he said : 

"A high license preacher won't be in hell ten minutes 



212 ELI PERKINS— THIRTY YEARS OF WIT. 

before the devil will have him saddled and bridled, rid- 
ing him around and exhibiting him as a curiosity." 

"And the infidels — do they trouble you?" 

"Infidels trouble me?" said Sam. "Why, I can put 
one hundred of these little infidels in my vest pocket 
and never know they are there except when I feel for 
my toothpick." 

Sam's sarcasm is as strong as the philippic of Lorenzo 
Dow against Aaron Burr. 

"Aaron Burr mean !" said Dow. "Why, I could take 
the little end of nothing whittled down to a point, 
punch out the pith of a hair and put in forty thou- 
sand such souls as his, shake 'em up, and they'd 
rattle." 

Yes, Sam Jones is generally logical. If he does 
now and then hide away a piece of plug tobacco in 
his mouth he don't defend it. He says he's a prohibi- 
tionist at heart, but one corner of his mouth is still 
out on probation. 

Some of our clergymen fuss and cavil over some 
immaterial point instead of sticking to the great point, 
which is Christ's love for, and dying for, the sinner. 
I heard a preacher out in Missouri one day preaching 
from the text, "He that believeth shall be saved." 
Splendid text, but how do you think he treated it? 
Well, he opened at considerable length with a general 
view of the subject, and then, concentrating his force, 
proceeded to a critical exegesis of the text in this wise : 

"My brethren, I wish to direct your attention closely 
and particularly to the wording of this Scripture, as 
thereby you will be able to reach the very meat and 
substance of it. The text says, 'He that believeth': 
observe, my brethren, it does not say, 'He that believes / 



STORY-TELLING CLERGYMEN. 213 

nor 'He that believe/,' but it plainly and expressly 
declares, it is he that beliew//* who shall be saved. 
Mark, my brethren, the force in the Scripture of the 
little word et/i/" 

Perhaps they did mark it ; but what the good 
preacher meant was more than the wisest of them 
could tell. 

The dear old preacher's sermon left the people as 
much in the fog as George Thatcher used to leave the 
audience after hesitating, stammering talk like this: 

"I used be a clerk in a store — clerk in a store, and oh 
the questions the women shoppers used to ask me. A 
lady came into the store one day and said : 

' 'Young man, have you got any kids?' 

"I bet I blushed — she meant gloves — kid gloves. 

"Then another old lady came in one day and said 
she wanted some 'moreantique.' 

"I said, 'How much have you had now?' and she 
said : 

"'Had what?' 

"I said, 'You don't want to get any more antique.' 

"Laws! but she was mad. She took out her smell- 
ing bottle, pulled out the cork; and I was laid up with 
catarrh for three weeks. 

"A lady came in one day and said, 'Can I see your 
hose?' 

"I said ; 'Ma'am?' 

"She said, 'Can I see your stockings?' 

"I said, 'Now?' 

"She said, 'Do you keep ladies' hose?' 

"I said, 'Yes'm, when we can't sell 'em we keep em.' 

"Then I asked her, 'What color?' and she said, 
'Solid color.' 



214 ELI PERKINS— THIRTY YEARS OF WIT. 

"I asked her if she 'lived in town.' 

"She said, 'Why do you ask?' 

"I told her 'solid colors prevail in the country,' and 
suggested stripes. 'They're more worn,' I said — 'worn 
more, I mean — don't mean they're worn-out more — 
but they're worn — more out — outside more.' Then I 
got confused. 

"There was a woman came in the store one day as 
black as the ace of spades — a colored woman — real 
color — and she wanted a pair of flesh-colored stockings. 
I showed her a black pair, and she pulled a stiletto out 
of her hair and was going to stab me. 

"I said, 'Madame, you asked for flesh-colored stock- 
ings ; these are the nearest match we have.' 

' 'But/ she said, 'I want white people's flesh colored, 

or flesh colored people's white ' And then she got 

confused and ran away — ran away." 

As the mystifying clergyman reminded me of George 
Thatcher, so the hesitating Thatcher reminds me of 
some of the transcendental language of our clergymen. 
To illustrate: 

Prof. Swing was talking religion with a free-thinking 
Irishman one day, and said : 

"Your mind, my friend, is in a twilight state. You 
cannot differentiate the grains of mistrust from the 
molecules of a reasonable confidence. You are travel- 
ing the border land, the frontier between the paradise 
of faith and the Arctic regions of incredulity. You 
are an agnostic." 

"Divil a bit!" said Pat, with mingled amazement 
and indignation. "I'm a Dimmycrat, ivery inch o' me." 

About the best clerical story told last year was told 
by Jay Gould to Secretary Wanamaker at Saratoga. 



STORY-TELLING CLERGYMEN. 215 

I had the pleasure of taking Mr. Gould to Secretary 
Wanamaker's room and introducing the wolf to the 
lamb. When Mr. Gould asked the Secretary if the 
task of changing postmasters wasn't a disagreeable 
thing to do, he said : 

"Yes. The details of the office of the Postmaster- 
General are often very disagreeable. Changing officers 
who have families is often painful. So I let Mr. Clark- 
son attend to this, telling him to do everything busi- 
ness-like and conscientious." 

"Your turning this work over to Clarkson," said 
Gould, smiling, "is like the case of a young woman, 
years ago, in our Walkill Valley church. She was a 
good young lady, but would always wear very showy 
toilets, attracting the attention of the whole church. 
One day some good sisters expostulated with her 
about her worldly ways. 

'The love of these bright bonnets/ they said, 'will 
draw your soul down to perdition.' 

"Still the somewhat worldly sister continued to wear 
a bright bonnet. But finally one night," said Gould, 
"came repentance. The young lady came to prayer- 
meeting in a plain hat. She arose and said : 

" T feel, brothers and sisters, that I have done wrong. 
I knew that my love for bright bonnets was ruining 
my future life. I knew it was endangering my soul 
and that it would draw me down to perdition. But I 
will never wear that hat again. Never! It shall not 
destroy my soul. I'm through with it. I've given it 
to my sister.' " 

It seems as if many of our good clergymen are fall- 
ing by the way because they think too much. The 
creeds which fence them in don't seem to hold them. 



2 1 6 ELI PERKINS— THIR T Y YEARS OF WIT. 

They will break through. There is Dr. Thomas, the 
Methodist ; Prof. Swing and Dr. Briggs, the Presby- 
terians; Dr. Bridgeman, the Baptist; Dr. McGlynn, 
the Catholic, and Heber Newton, the Episcopalian. 
They all believe in God and the Prophets, believe in 
the inspiration of the Bible, but they don't believe in 
the inspiration of all the Hebrew and Greek translators. 
They believe the spring is pure at the fountain-head, 
and that the Lamb is innocent, but they believe that 
the irreligious wolves have been soiling the waters 
with tradition and superstition. 

Heber Newton tells me that a very devout clergy- 
man of the old school was trying to impress upon the 
mind of his son the fact that God takes care of all his 
creatures; that the falling sparrow attracts his atten- 
tion, and that his loving kindness is over all his works. 
Happening one day to see a crane wading in search of 
food, the good man pointed out to his son the perfect 
adaptation of the crane to get his living in that 
manner. 

''See," said he, "how his legs are formed for wading! 
What a long, slender bill he has ! Observe how nicely 
he folds his feet when putting them in or drawing 
them out of the water! He does not cause the 
slightest ripple. He is thus enabled to approach the 
fish without giving them any notice of his arrival. 

"My son," said he enthusiastically, "it is impossible 
to look at that bird without recognizing the design, as 
well as the goodness of God, in thus providing the 
means of subsistence." 

"Yes," replied the boy, "I think I see the goodness 
of God, at least so far as the crane is concerned ; but, 
after all, father, who is looking after the poor fish?" 



STORY-TELLING CLERGYMEN. 217 

It was the old case of the "early bird catches the 
first worm," but the late worm generally lives the 
longest. What is sauce for the goose is not always 
for the gander. 

Dr. Newton's parable reminds me of the striking 
illustration of the stanch old Tennessee Baptist. He 
wanted to illustrate the three sects, Methodists, 
Episcopalians, and hard-shell Baptists. So he took a 
chestnut into the pulpit one day, and, holding it up to 
the congregation, began : 

"My friends, you see this chestnut; well, this outer 
burr here is like the Methodists, soft and spongy, with 
no strength into it ; see, I even mash it with my fin- 
gers," and, suiting the action to the words, he sloughed 
it off and disclosed the inner nut, and said : 

"This inner nut is like the Episcopalians, smooth 
and dry and velvety, with no substance in it." 

"But the kurnul — the kurnul, my Christian friends, 
is like our good old primitive, hard-shell Baptist faith, 
full of fatness and sweetness." 

He then proceeded to give his hearers an ocular 
demonstration of his illustration, by crunching the 
chestnut between his teeth — and at the same time 
blowing the moldy meat all over the pulpit, and ex- 
claiming, to the astonishment of everybody: 

"By Jinks! it's rotten !" 

The good old Baptist clergyman was as badly de- 
ceived as Burdette's clergyman was in his illustration 
of patience before the Peoria Bible class. 

When I asked Burdette to tell me just exactly how 
it occurred, he stood up so as to be ready for a violent 
gesture and said : 

"It was one hot summer afternoon when the air was 



2i» ELI PERKINS— THIRTY YEARS OF WIT 

full of sunshine and singing birds and buzzing insects. 
Our dear old clergyman — I can see him now — was tell- 
ing us boys how we should never get excited. 

'Boys,' he said, 'you should always be patient — 
you should never lose your tempers — never let your 
angry passions rise. You should never swear, or get 
angry or excited. I never do. Now, to illustrate, 
boys,' pointing upward, 'you all see that little fly on 
my nose. A good many wicked, worldly men would 
get angry at that fly, but I don't! 

"'What do I do? 

"'Why, my children, I simply say, go away fly — 
go away — and Gosh blast it! if s a WASP !' ' 

Prof. Swing, who delights in a good story, says the 
clergymen who read and interpret the Bible literally, 
are like that old colored theologian, the Rev. Caesar 
Green, down in Arkansas. 

Caesar was the only Baptist around Pine Bluff, and 
he always 'stuck up,' as we all ought to, for his own 
faith, and was ready with a reason for it, although he 
was unable to read a word. This was the way he 
"went at the Methodists." 

"You kin read, now, keant you?" he asked the 
Methodist elder. 

"Yes." 

"Well, I s'pose you've read the Bible, hain't you?" 

"Yes." 

"You've read about John de Baptist, hain't you?" 

"Yes." 

"Well, you never read about John de Methodis\ did 
you? Now, when you show me jes one Bible wid de 
word Methodis' in it, I'll consider yer claim." 

When they talked to Mr. Beecher about eternal 



STORY-TELLING CLERGYMEN. 219 

punishment, he used to sit still and think. He thought 
how John Wesley and Jonathan Edwards had taught 
it, and how his father had instilled it into him up in 
Litchfield County. He felt guilty not to believe in 
the damnation of babes, and the everlasting punish- 
ment of the poor heathen, who could not read and had 
never heard of Christ. But still he couldn't accept it. 
He could not agree with Andover. 

"I know it was part of my mother's religion," he 
said one day, "and thousands believe in it and teach 
it. 

"There used to be an old lady in Boston," he said, 
"who carried eternal punishment into her daily life. 
She kept a boarding-house, but she was so stanch in 
her principles that for a long time she wouldn't take 
any one to board who did not hold to the eternal 
punishment of a large portion of the race. But the 
people were more intent on carnal comforts than 
spiritual health, so in time her house became empty, 
much to her grief and alarm. 

"After her house had been empty for a long time a 
bluff old sea captain knocked at the door, and the old 
lady answered the call. 

" 'Good-morning, ma'am. Can you give me board 
for two or three days? Got my ship here, and shall be 
off as soon as I load.' 

Wa'al, I don't know,' said the old lady. 

"'Oh, house full, eh?' 

"•No, but ' 

'But what, ma'am?' 

T don't take any unclean or carnal people in my 
house. What do you believe?' 

"'About what?' 



220 ELI PERKINS— THIRTY YEARS OF WIT 

' 'Why, do you believe that any one will be con- 
demned?' 

'"Oh, thunder! yes.' 

''Do you?' said the good woman, brightening up. 
'Well, how many souls do you think will be on fire 
eternally?' 

' 'Don't know, ma'am, really — never calculated 
that.' 

" 'Can't you guess?' 

" 'Can't say — perhaps fifty thousand.' 

" 'Wa'al, hem!' mused the old woman; 'I guess I'll 
take you ; fifty thousand burning souls is better than 
nothing.' " 

Beecher always maintained that prayer would not 
be answered without faith and work. "God will not 
answer idle words," he said, "but prayer with faith will 
remove a mountain." 

I heard of an old Baptist mother in Israel out in 
Missouri who had the right kind of faith, but she carried 
it so far that it was amusing. The old lady lived at 
Maryville, just above Clay County, when Jesse James 
and his gang were in command of the State. Well, 
one day her little boy Johnny went over to the 
Missouri River to skate. Sad to say, little Johnny 
never returned. The good old lady bore her loss 
patiently and silently for a week, and finally she took 
the burden of her grief to the Maryville prayer-meet- 
ing. 

When she asked for prayers for her little boy's 
recovery, the clergyman asked her where she thought 
her Johnny was lost. 

"I dun know, Elder," she said, "I dun know; but 
the brothers and sisters needn't pray below St. Jo !" 



STORY-TELLING CLERGYMEN. 221 

Many clergymen make their prayers too special. 
They spend so much time telling the Lord what he 
knows, saying, "O Lord, thou knowest," that they 
have no time left to ask for a blessing. Prayers be- 
fore political conventions are often that way. At a 
Presidential convention in Cincinnati, the clergyman 
informed the Lord that low tariff would hurt the 
country. ''Decrease wages, O Lord," he said, ''and 
break up our manufactories, and tin plate would have 
to be made in Wales, O Lord," and so he went on, and 
finally actually forgot to ask the Lord to frown down 
on the Free Traders. 

His prayer reminded me of a prayer I once heard 
Elder Smitzer make when us boys used to go to his 
protracted meeting in Hamilton, N. Y. The elder 
always told the Lord everything. He would go on 
for half an hour informing the Lord about everything 
in Hamilton and Log City, and even in Asia, Africa, 
and Oceanica. 

Once I took down the elder's prayer in short-hand, 
and it ran thus : 

"O Lord, thou knowest everything. Thou knowest 
our uprisings and our downsittings. Thou knowest 
thy servants' inmost hearts. Thou knowest, O Lord, 
what thy servant's children are doing. Thou knowest 
the wickedness of thy servant's nephew, Francis 
Smitzer — how he came home last night in a beastly 
state of intoxication, whistling, O Lord, that wicked 
popular air (whistling) : 

Sho' fly, don't bodder me ! 

Thou recognizest the tune, O Lord !" 

I asked Uncle Josh, our colored preacher on the 



222 ELI PERKINS— THIRTY YEARS OF WIT. 

plantation at Helena, Ark., if he believed in special 
prayer. 

"What you mean by special prayer?" asked Uncle 
Josh, picking a turkey feather off of his trousers. 

"By special prayer I mean where you pray for an 
especial thing." 

"Wal, now, Mister Perkins, dat depends. It depends 
a good deal on what yo' pray for." 

''How is that, Uncle Josh?" 

"Wal, I allays notice dat when I pray de Lord to 
send one of Massa Shelby's turkeys to de ole man it 
don't come, but when I prays dat he'll send de ole 
man after de turkey my prayer is allays answered." 

Uncle Josh certainly believed in faith and works. 

One day we suspected Uncle Josh was meddling 
with our fruit trees, for we found him in the garden 
late at night. 

"Here! what are you doing here, Uncle Josh?" I 
asked. 

The good negro nonplussed us all by raising his 
eyes, clasping his hands, and piously exclaiming: 

"Good Lord ! dis yere darky can't go nowhere to 
pray any more without bein' 'sturbed." 



DOCTORS' WIT AND HUMOR. 



General Sheridan Jokes Dr. Bliss — Dr. Hammond Cures Eli Perkins — 
Dr. Monson Knows it All — The Colored Doctor — The Irishman's 
Doctor. 

THE doctor — the up-all-night, hard-working doctor! 
We all make fun of him, but we all send for him. 
He is an ex necessitate ret. When I asked old Mrs. 
Throop what the doctor did for her, she looked over 
her spectacles and said: "Well, he came and put 
some water in two tumblers and — and talked so intelli- 
gently !" 

I love the doctor for his negative qualities; not 
for medicating us, but for his skillfully administered 
bread pills. I love him for his diplomatic way of 
making us believe he's doctored us when he hasn't — 
for the best doctors now take off their hats to Dr. 
Nature, and let him do what they used to do with 
physic. 

Speaking of negative doctoring reminds me of how 
General Sheridan defended Dr. Bliss. Dr. Bliss, you 
know, was the man who cured President Garfield, — that 
is, cured him as Dr. Mackenzie did the German 
emperor, — cured him till he died. 

One day when they were criticising Dr. Bliss, 
General Sheridan came to the doctor's defense. 

"Dr. Bliss was a good physician," said General 
Sheridan, "he saved my life once." 



224 ELI PERKINS— THIRTY YEARS OF WIT. 

"How? How did Bliss save your life?" asked Dr. 
Hammond. 

"Well," said Sheridan, "I was very sick in the 
hospital after the battle of Winchester. One day they 
sent for Dr. Agnew of Philadelphia, and he gave me 
some medicine, but I kept getting worse. Then they 
sent for Dr. Frank Hamilton and he gave me some 
more medicine, but I grew worse and worse. Then 
they sent for Dr. Bliss, and " 

"And you still grew worse?" 

"No, Dr. Bliss didn't come; he saved my life!'* 

The mystery about medicines and the obscurity of 
professional terms throw a romance about the doctor. 

One day I fell out of a third story window on to a 
picket fence. When I asked Dr. Hammond if I would 
die or recover, he looked at my tongue and said he 
"thought I would." 

"Why?" I asked. 

"Because," said he, "on general principles, Mr. 
Perkins, whenever a patient's oesophagus becomes hy- 
peraemic through the inordinate use of spiritus vini 
rectificati, causing hepatic cirrhosis, the reverse holds 
true — in other cases it does not." 

Then he put some water in two tumblers, and said : 

"Idiosyncrasy, Mr. Perkins, is not superinduced by 
the patient's membranous outer cuticle becoming ho- 
mogeneous with his transmagnifibandanduality." 

Sez I, "Doctor, I think so, too." 

My doctor, Dr. Hammond, is a great doctor. He 
can cure anything. He can cure cholera or small- 
pox, or hams or bacon. 

One day I cut my toe off with an ax. When I 
called in Dr. Hammond to prescribe for me he said 



DOCTORS' WIT AND HUMOR. 225 

he thought I had tic doloro, and then he prescribed 
bleeding, and bled me out of seventeen dollars. That 
was the dollar; and when he wanted his pay I told 
him to charge it, and that was the tic ; and I still owe 
it to him, and that is the "o." 

The doctors are not physicians any more. Since 
Dr. Koch has discovered the lymph cure they are 
lymphites, and I who write about them am a 
lymphologian. Or the doctors are tubercologytes and 
I am a tubercologian. Terms are always mystifying, 
and the public must be awed with mystery. 

Two very curious incidents occurred to me recently — 
all through the mystification of terms. The news- 
papers nowadays are full of Italian murders and New 
Orleans assassinations, and any one whose name ends 
with an i, like Martinelli, or Morelli, is looked upon 
with suspicion. So when I was a little ill the other 
morning and our Irish butler wondered what was the 
matter, I said : 

"I think, Dennis, that it was that Italian maccaroni 
spaghetti that hurt me." 

"That Eyetalyun Spaghetti !" exclaimed Dennis. 
"Faith, and thim bloody Eyetalyuns will hurt enny 
one." 

Later in the day I stepped up to my regular Irish 
newsdealer to get the morning papers. The old Irish- 
man looked me in the face, and seeing that I looked a 
little pale remarked : 

"Yez don't look well this morning, Mr. Perkins. 
Have ye been sick?" 

"Well," said I, looking very serious, "I was laid out 
last week by an attack of peritonitis." 

"Attacked by Purtinitist, eh," exclaimed the old 



226 ELI PERKINS— THIRTY YEARS OF WIT. 

man, looking a great deal mixed up mentally. Then, 
after a moment's pause, and in a very indignant tone, 
he exclaimed : 

"Purtinitist ! Why didn't you dhraw your gun and 
shoot the Eyetalyun blaggard through the heart?" 

A cautious doctor will always sit still and let his 
patient talk, and in a few moments he will know all 
about his disease. But they tell a story about Dr. 
Munson, of Baltimore, who was always "too previous." 
He would glance at a patient and pompously sum 
up his case in an instant, often making mistakes. 

One afternoon a tired looking man called and asked 
for treatment. The doctor looked at his tongue, felt 
of his pulse, knocked on his chest, and began : 

"Same old story, my friend. Men can't live without 
fresh air. No use trying it. I could make myself a 
corpse, like you are doing by degrees, if I sat down in 
my office and didn't stir. You must have fresh air; 
you must take long walks, and brace up by staying 
out doors. Now I could make a drug store of you. 
and you would think I was a smart man. but my 
advice to you is to walk, walk, walk." 

"But doctor " 

"That's right. Argue the question. That's my 
reward. Of course you know all about my business. 
Now, will you take my advice? Take long walks every 
day, several times a day, and get your blood in circula- 
tion." 

"I do walk, doctor. I " 

"Of course you do walk. I know that ; but walk 
more. Walk ten times as much as you do now. That 
will cure you." 

"But my business " 



DOC TORS ' WIT A ND II UMOR. 221 

"Of course, your business prevents it. Change your 
business, so that you have to walk more. What is 
your business?" 

"I'm a letter carrier." 

"My friend," said the doctor, almost paralyzed, 
"permit me to once more examine your tongue." And 
then he handed him a box of pills, with directions to 
take "one pill five times a day." 

''Doctors often say their fees are high because so 
many patients fail to pay their honest bills. To 
collect these bills doctors often have to resort to the 
courts. A queer medico-legal case came up recently in 
Chicago : Dr. Barker sued an Irishman for five dollars 
for professional services attending his wife. He proved 
his claim by competent witnesses — proved that he had 
made the visits, and there seemed to be no chance 
for the Irishman to get out of paying the bill. But 
after admitting the visits the Irishman begged the 
privilege of cross-examining the doctor. 

"Doctor," he commenced, "you remember when I 
called on you?" 

< < T 1 • >> 

I do, sir. 

"What did I soy?" 

"You said your wife was sick, and you wished me to 
go and see her." 

"What did you soy thin?" 

"I said I would if you'd pay me my fee." 

"What did I soy?" 

"You said you'd pay the fee, if you knew what it 
was." 

"What did you soy?" 

"I said I'd take five dollars at first, and maybe more 
In the end, according to the sickness." 



228 ELI PERKINS—THIRTY YEARS OF WIT. 

"Now, Docthor, by vartue of your oath, didn't I 
soy 'Kill or cure, Docthor, I'll give you the five dollars.' 
And didn't you soy, 'Kill or cure, I'll take it'?" 

"I did ; and I agreed to the bargain, and want the 
money accordingly," said Dr. Barker. 

"Now, Docthor, by vartue of your oath answer this: 
'Did you cure me wife'?" 

"No; she's dead. You know that." 

"Then, Docthor, by vartue of your oath answer this : 
'Did you kill me wife'?" 

"No; she died of her illness." 

"Your worship," said the Irishman turning to the 
judge, "you see this. You heard him tell our bargain. 
It was to kill or cure. By vartue of his oath he done 
neither, and he axes the fee!" 

The Irishman lost his case, however. He was not 
so successful as farmer Bennett — old Peter Bennett of 
Georgia. Old Peter was a plain old farmer, but he 
was a good talker. It seems that the old man's wife 
had a sore limb, and he employed Dr. Mason to cure 
it, but never paid him for services. Now, Dr. Mason 
was a very noted and a very learned man ; and to add 
to this he employed Bob Toombs to prosecute the 
case. It was a great case in Georgia, "Old Peter 
Bennett vs. Dr. Mason," and the reputation of Toombs 
brought out a court house full of people. 

Well, Toombs made a strong speech. He didn't 
leave a ghost of a chance for old Peter. However, just 
before the decision was to be made, old Peter arose and 
said : 

"Jedge, moight I say suthin' in this case?" 

"Certainly," said the judge. 

"Wall, gentlemen of the jury," began old Peter, de- 



DOCTORS' WIT AND HUMOR. 229 

positing a chew of tobacco in the corner, "I ain't no 
lawyer and no doctor, and you ain't nuther; and if we 
farmers don't stick together, these here lawyers and 
doctors will get the advantage of us. I ain't no objec- 
tions to lawyers and doctors in their place, and some 
is clever men, but they ain't farmers, gentlemen of the 
jury. Now this Dr. Mason was a new doctor, and I 
sent for him to come and doctor my wife's sore leg. 
And he did, and put some salve truck on it, and some 
rags, but it never done a bit of good, gentlemen of the 
jury. I don't believe he's no doctor, no way. There's 
doctors as I know is doctors, sure enough ; but this 
ain't no doctor at all." 

Old Peter was making headway with the jury, when 
Dr. Mason said, "Here is my diploma." 

"His diploma," said Bennett, with great contempt ; 
"that ain't nothin', for no piece of paper ever made a 
doctor yet." 

"Ask my patients," yelled the now thoroughly en- 
raged physician. 

"Ask your patients," slowly repeated Bennett; and 
then, deliberating, "Ask your patients ! Why, they are 
all dead. Ask your patients! Why, I should have 
to hunt them in the lonely graveyards, and rap on the 
silent tomb to get answers from the dead. You know 
they can't say nothing to this case, for you've killed 
'em all." 

Loud was the applause, and old Peter Bennett won 
his case. 



ELI WITH THE LAWYERS. 



Anecdotes of Choate, Ingersoll, and Evarts — Foraker's Joke on Dan 
Voorhees — Negro Judges in South Carolina — Challenging the Judge 
— Funny Verdicts. 

SINCE studying law in Columbia College Law School, 
Washington, many years ago, I have tried to keep in 
my mind all the good law stories and pathetic or laugh- 
able incidents that have happened in our courts. But 
I save no story that does not illustrate a moral, legal, 
political, or judicial point. These stories generally re- 
sult from bantering lawyers, queer charges of judges, 
and strange verdicts. 

I told the best story about the bantering lawyer and 
the old soldier years ago, but it is good enough to go 
into history. 

Several years after the war a badgering Philadelphia 
lawyer was trying to destroy the character and veracity 
of a modest witness, who entered the witness-box on 
crutches. 

"Have you ever been in prison?" asked the bluster- 
ing lawyer, aiming to bully the witness and overawe 
him. 

The witness did not answer. 

"Come, now, speak up; no concealment. Have you 
ever been in prison, sir?" 

"Yes, sir; once," answered the witness, looking mod- 
estly down to the floor. 



ELI WITH THE LAV/YERS. 231 

"Yes, I thought so. Now when? When were you in 
prison, sir?" 

"In 1863." 

"Where, sir?" 

The witness hesitated. 

"Come, own up, now; no dodging!" screamed the 
lawyer. "Now, where were you in prison, sir?" 

"In — in — in — " 

"Don't stammer, sir! Out with it ! Where was it?" 

"In — in Andersonville, sir." 

There was a moment's painful pause. Then the 
lawyer, who was an old soldier, put his hand to his 
forehead as if a pistol shot had struck him, while the 
tears came to his eyes. Then jumping forward, he 
clasped his arms around the witness's neck, and ex- 
claimed : 

"My God! I was there myself!" 

Rufus Choate, who was the shrewdest cross-examiner 
among all the lawyers of the Massachusetts bar, was 
once trying to impeach the veracity of a witness. He 
had been toying with the witness for some time with- 
out getting any damaging admissions, and finally he 
made up his mind to go at him plump and force him 
to the wall. 

"Now," he said, eyeing the witness savagely, "you 
know what robbery is, don't you?" 

"Yes, sir." 

"Well, you look like it. Now, sir, I ask you plainly 
and categorically, were you ever engaged in a bank 
robbery?" 

The witness hesitated. 

"I repeat, sir— did you not once rob a bank? Come, 
no evasion." 



232 ELI PERKINS— THIRTY YEARS OF WIT. 

"I was never indicted for bank robbery. I " 

"Never mind that; answer my question. Were you 
ever engaged in a bank robbery? Speak up." 

"Judge, must I answer this question?" said the 
witness, appealing to the Court. 

"Yes, you will have to answer it?" 

"Well, what is the question?" 

"I give it to you again, sir. Did you not once rob 
a bank? Speak up, sir; no equivocation. Did you?" 

"No, sir," said the witness, smiling, while the whole 
court screamed with laughter. 

Mr. Ingersoll is such a devoted husband and father 
himself that any infidelity on the part of a husband 
infuriates him. He holds that a man's love should 
be given to his wife first, last, and all the time. 

In a divorce case, recently, Mr. Ingersoll believed 
the defendant had been untrue to his wife, and he 
thus opened up on him in cross-examination. 

"You say, sir, that you have always been faithful 
to your marriage vows?" 

"Well — yes," hesitatingly. 

"But you have associated with other women." 

"I presume so." 

"Been to see them?" 

"No, sir." 

"Oh ! they came to your house?" 

"Judge!" appealed the witness, "must I answer 
these foolish questions." 

"Yes, answer," said the judge sternly. 

"Now," said Ingersoll, feeling that he had the man 
in his grasp, "what woman, other than your wife, 
came to your house?" 

"Well— oh " 



ELI WITH THE LAWYERS. 233 

"Answer; don't prevaricate; who was it?" 

"Judge !" with an appealing look, to which the judge 
said, "Go on !" 

"Answer; who was it?" demanded Ingersoll. 

"My mother," lisped the witness, with a quiet wink 
at the jury. 

Ingersoll had a case once, in Peoria, where a mother 
testified in behalf of her son, and swore "that he had 
worked on a farm ever since he was born." 

"What!" exclaimed Ingersoll, "you swear he has 
worked on the farm ever since he was born?" 

"I do." 

"What did he do the first year?" 

"He milked r 

There was a mingling of law and medicine one morn- 
ing in Judge Brady's courtroom. They were cross- 
examining a pale, consumptive-looking man, who was 
continually coughing. The judge's patience gave out 
after a while, and he said petulantly: 

"Here, just stop that coughing, now; stop it!" 

There was a short, painful silence, during which the 
pale cougher struggled with himself, and then coughed 
again and continued it for several minutes. 

"I'm bound to stop that coughing," exclaimed the 
judge. "I fine you ten dollars. That'll stop it, I guess." 

"Jedge," said the cadaverous man, "I'd be willin' to 
pay twenty dollars to have that cough stopped. If 
you can stop it for ten dollars you'd better get right 
down off of that bench and go to practicing medicine. 
There's money in it, Jedge — money in it !" 

They often say that judges are always heartless, but 
a case came up in Arkansas where the judge showed a 
remarkable warmth of feeling. 



234 ELI PERKINS— THIRTY YEARS OF WIT. 

A gentleman was arraigned before this Arkansas 
justice on a charge of obtaining money under false 
pretenses. He had entered a store, pretending to be 
a customer, but proved to be a thief. 

"Your name is Jim Lickmore," said the justice. 

"Yes, sir." 

"And you are charged with a crime that merits a long 
term in the penitentiary?" 

"Yes, sir." 

"And you are guilty of the crime?" 

"I am." 

"And you ask for no mercy?" 

"No, sir." 

"You have had a great deal of trouble within the last 
two years?" 

"Yes, sir; I have." 

"You have often wished that you were dead?" 

"I have, please your Honor." 

"You wanted to steal money enough to take you 
away from Arkansaw?" 

"You are right, Jedge." 

"If a man had stepped up and shot you just as you 
entered the store, you would have said, 'Thank you, 
sir ? 

"Yes, sir, I would. But, Judge, how did you find 
out so much about me?" 

"Some time ago," said the judge confidentially, and 
with a solemn air, "I was divorced from my wife. 
Shortly afterward you married her. The result is 
conclusive. I discharge you. Here, take this fifty- 
dollar bill. You have suffered enough." 

Lawyers often have hard work to get witnesses to 
state precisely the words spoken. A witness was 



ELI WITH THE LA IV VERS. 235 

examined in a case before Judge Folger, who required 
him to repeat the precise words spoken. 

"Now," said the judge, "I want you to tell 
us precisely what the man said. Give his exact 
words." 

The witness hesitated until he riveted the attention 
of the entire court upon him ; then, fixing his eyes 
earnestly on the judge, began : 

"May it please your Honor," he said, ''you lie and 
steal, and get your living by stealing." 

The face of the judge reddened, and he immediately 
said: 

"Turn to the Jury, sir." 

On another occasion Judge Folger was trying a man 
who had been caught stealing and pleaded in extenua- 
tion that he was drunk. 

"What did the man say when you arrested him?" 
asked the judge of the policeman. 

"He said he was drunk." 

"I want his precise words, just as he uttered them; 
he didn't use the pronoun he, did he? He didn't say 
lie was drunk?" asked the judge. 

"Oh, yes he did ; he said he was drunk ; he acknow- 
ledged the corn." 

"You don't understand me at all"; said the judge, 
getting impatient. "I want the words as he uttered 
them; didn't he say T was drunk?' 

"Oh, no, your Honor, he didn't say you were drunk; 
/wouldn't allow any man to charge that upon you in 
my presence." 

"Pshaw !" interrupted the prosecuting attorney, "you 
don't comprehend at all ; his Honor means, did not the 
prisoner say, T was drunk'?" 



23 6 ELI PERKINS— THIRTY YEARS OF WIT. 

"Well," said the policeman reflectively, "he might 
have said you was drunk, but I didn't hear him." 

"What the Court desires," said the prosecuting 
attorney earnestly, "is to have you state the prisoner's 
own words, preserving the precise form of the pronoun 
that he made use of in reply. Was it first person, I ; 
second person, thou, or the third person, he, she, or it? 
Now, then, sir (with severity), upon your oath, didn't 
my client say, 'I was drunk'?" 

"No, condamit, he didn't say you was drunk, but 
(reflectively) I believe you was, and are now; but on 
my oath the man didn't say so." 

Speaking of accurate answers the answer in regard 
to old Mrs. Flannagan's veracity capped the climax. 
It seems that in a recent murder trial at Bangor, Me., 
the old lady swore to a confession made to her by the 
respondent, whereupon defense called old Erastus 
Wiley, who had said repeatedly he wouldn't believe 
her under oath. 

"Do you know the reputation of Mrs. Flannagan for 
truth and veracity?" asked the judge. 

"Well now, Squire," said Wiley, "I guess she'd tell 
the truth ; but about her veracity — well, now, some say 
she would and some say she wouldn't." 

In 1868, on my return from Europe, I spent the 
winter and spring in the sweet old town of Darlington, 
S. C. My experience hunting coons nights in the pine 
woods, with little armies of darkies armed with blazing 
pine knots, would fill a book. The Carpet-baggers were 
ruling in those days, and there were many negro judges. 
I got the best conception of negro justice then that I 
ever received. While I was in Darlington, Caesar Green, 
an aged colored man, was arrested for stealing a cow, 



ELI WITH THE LA WYERS. 237 

killing her, and disposing of the meat. The hide and 
horns were found on Mr. Green's premises. Proof of 
stealing was complete. In fact, Caesar confessed to 
stealing the cow. 

"Well, Mr. Green," said the darky judge, "you 
stands 'victed ob stealin' de cow. Now, what you got 
to say for yusself? What you gwine to do 'bout 
it?" 

"I hain't got nuffin to say, jedge ; but I 'specs jestice 
demands dat I pay for de cow?" 

"Yes, you's got to pay seventeen dollars for de 
cow," said the justice sternly, "and dat will settle it." 

"But, jedge, I hain't got de seventeen dollars." 

"No money at all?" 

"No, not a cent, jedge." 

"Does anybody owe you any money?" asked the 
judge. 

"Yes," said the culprit, "Jack Smith owes me seven- 
teen dollars, and he's done owed it to me since 
Chris'mas." 

"Very well," said the judge sternly. "Justice must 
take her course. De law must be satisfied. I order 
de sheriff to discharge de pris'ner an' arrest Jack 
Smith, an' hold him in close 'finement till he pays de 
seventeen dollars." 

When I left Darlington, two weeks after, I learned 
Smith had paid the seventeen dollars, and justice 
(colored) was satisfied. 

A while after this Caesar Green was arrested for 
stealing Mr. Jones's chickens, but stoutly denied it. 
However, his case came to trial and I attended it, and 
listened to the cross-examination : 

"And you say, Caesar, that you are innocent of the 



238 ELI PERKINS— THIRTY YEARS OF WIT. 

charge of stealing a rooster from Mr. Jones?" asked 
the colored judge. 

"Yis, sah; I is innocent; innocent as a child." 

"Then you are perfectly confident that you did not 
steal the rooster from Mr. Jones?" 

"Yis, sah; and I kin prove it. I'ze got an alibi." 

"How can you prove it?" 

"I kin prove dat I didn't steal Massa Jones's rooster, 
jedge, 'case I stole two hens from Mr. Graston de 
same night, and Jones he lives five miles from 
Graston's." 

"The proof is conclusive," said the judge. "Dis- 
charge the prisoner." 

It was in the same colored court that there happened 
to be upon the docket a case of "Bump against Green." 
When the colored judge reached this case upon the 
first call there was no answer, and he called out to the 
attorney for the plaintiff : 

"Mr. Jones, 'Bump against Green.'" 

Mr. Jones, who had not been paying strict atten- 
tion, and evidently not comprehending the situation, 
looked up and said : 

"Bump against him yourself , judge." 

One day they asked the colored judge if he would 
convict a man on circumstantial evidence ! 

"I dunno wot dat is, boss." 

"Well, what do you think it is?" I asked. 

"Well, 'cordin' to my judgment, sarcumstanshil evi- 
dence is 'bout dis : If one man shoots annudder and 
kills him, he orter to be hung for it. Ef he don't kill 
him, he orter go to the plenipotentiary." 

A young Darlington lawyer defended a negro in the 
colored court. The jury were all negroes. Many hac[ 



ELI WITH THE LA WYERS. 239 

been challenged, because the accused darky said they 
were again him. After the lawyer got his twelve jury- 
men he whispered to the colored man and asked : 

"Are there any more jurymen who have prejudices 
against you?" 

"No, boss, de jury am all right, but now I wants 
you to challenge de jedge. I has been convicted 
under him seberal times already, and maybe he is be- 
ginnin' to hab prejudice agin me." 

The young lawyer, this being his first case, took the 
advice of his client, and addressing the Court, told the 
judge he could step aside. 

Which he did. 

It has got to the point in New York that no sensible 
business man will have anything to do with law in 
this city, on account of the excessive fees. The fees in 
New York remind me of a little law incident in Nor- 
wich, Conn. 

George Smith had failed in business there and sold 
out, and having two or three tough little bills, had 
given them to his lawyer for collection. Smith went 
to the office to receive the proceeds. The amount 
collected was about fifty dollars. 

"I'm sorry you've been so unfortunate, Smith," said 
the lawyer, "for I take a great interest in you. I 
shan't charge you so much as I should if I didn't feel 
so much interest in you." 

Here he handed Smith fifteen dollars, and kept the 
balance. 

"You see, Smith," continued the lawyer, "I knew 
you when you were a boy, and I knew your father be- 
fore you, and I take a good deal of interest in you. 
Good-morning; come and see me again!" 



240 ELI PERKINS— THIRTY YEARS OF WIT. 

Smith, moving slowly out of the door, and ruefully 
contemplating the avails, was heard to mutter: 

"Thank God, you didn't know my grandfather." 

This Norwich story reminds me of a little conversa- 
tion between Wm. M. Evarts and Tim, a well-known, 
jolly, florid-faced old New York drayman. 

"Have you had a job to-day, Tim?" asked Mr. 
Evarts, seeing Tim's dray hitched to the curb in front 
of his office. 

"Bedad, I did, sor." 

"How many?" 

"On'y two, sor." 

"How much did you get for both?" 

"Sivinty cints, sor." 

"Seventy cents! How in the world do you expect 
to live and keep a horse on seventy cents a day?" 

"Some days I have half a dozen jobs, sor; but 
bizniss has been dull to-day, sor. On'y the hauling of 
a trunk for a gintilman for forty cints, an' a load of 
furniture for thirty cints; an' there was the pots an' 
the kittles, an' the divil on'y knows phat ; a big load, 
sor." 

"Do you carry big loads of household goods for 
thirty cents?" 

"She was a poor widdy, sor, an' had no more to give 
me. I took all she had, sor; an' bedad, sor, a Iyer 
could have done no better nor that, sor." 

When the A. T. Stewart heirs asked Mr. Evarts 
what he would charge to manage their case against 
Judge Hilton, he said: 

"Well, I will take a contingent fee." 

"And what is a contingent fee?" asked one of the 
heirs. 



ELI WITH THE LAWYERS. 241 

"My dear sir," said Mr. Evarts mellifiuously, "I will 
tell you what a contingent fee to a lawyer means. If 
I don't win your suit, I get nothing. If I do win it, 
you get nothing." 

But strange to say, Evarts and Choate won their 
case and got millions for these heirs, and as soon as 
they won it they were retained by Judge Hilton — and 
the leak has been stopped. 

While I was in Leadville in 1870, the coroner's 
jury, after investigating a murder case, brought in this 
verdict : 

We find that Jack Smith came to his death from heart disease. 
We find two bullet holes and a dirk knife in that organ, and we 
recommend that Bill Younger be lynched to prevent the spreading 
of the disease. 

Ex-Governor Foraker, of Ohio, told me this capital 
legal story on Senator Daniel Voorhees. "Senator 
Voorhees was once a hard-working lawyer in Terre 
Haute. On one occasion," said Governor Foraker, 
"Voorhees defended a gambler for killing a man. 
There were some doubts about the case — whether it 
was murder or manslaughter. Voorhees made a superb 
plea, but still the gambler's friends were afraid he 
would be convicted. They had plenty of money and 
had raised $5000 to influence a juryman, as those 
were old times when justice was not as pure as now. 
Well, they picked out a weak juryman and agreed to 
give him §5000 if he would 'hang the jury.' 

"The man earned his money," said Foraker, "for, 
sure enough, the jury disagreed. The next day there 
was a meeting of Voorhees and the friends to pay the 
faithful juryman. 



242 ELI PERKINS— THIRTY YEARS OF WIT. 

" 'You earned the money/ said the friends of 
Voorhees to the juryman, 'and here it is with our 
thanks.' 

' 'Earned it,' said the juryman. 'I guess I did. I 
kept that jury out two days. I wouldn't give them a 
wink of sleep till they agreed with me in a verdict of 
manslaughter, and they knew it.' 

"How did they stand when they first went out?' 
asked Voorhees. 

'Well, there were eleven of them for acquittal — 
but I brought 'em round !' " 

I will end my law reminiscences with a little story 
about our present chief justice, Melville W. Fuller: 

Chief Justice Fuller, when a boy, belonged to a 
debating club in Oldtown, Me. One evening, capital 
punishment was debated. The deacon of the church 
was for hanging. Young Fuller was opposed. 

Said the deacon, quoting from the Mosaic law: 
"Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man his blood shall 
be shed." Thinking this to be a bombshell to his 
opponents he dwelt upon it till his time had expired, 
when the boy sprang to his feet, and said : 

"Supposing we take the law which the gentleman 
has quoted and see what the logical deduction would 
come to. For example, one man kills another ; another 
man kills him, and so on until we come to the last 
man on earth. Who's going to kill him? He dare 
not commit suicide, for the same law forbids it. Now, 
Deacon," continued the boy, "what are you going to 
do with that last man?" 

The boy's logic called out rounds of applause, and 
vanquished the deacon, and we hope he will be our 
chief justice for a thousand years. 



ELI WITH THE LA WYERS. 243 

Twenty years after this, when the chief justice was 
practicing law in Chicago before Judge McArthur, he 
made another bright answer. In his speech before 
the judge, he pleaded his client's ignorance of the law 
in extenuation of an offense he had committed. The 
judge said, "Every man is presumed to know the law, 
Mr. Fuller." 

"I am aware of that, your Honor," responded Mr. 
Fuller. "Every shoemaker, tailor, mechanic, and 
illiterate laborer is presumed to know the law, every 
man is presumed to know it, except judges of the 
Supreme Court, and we have a Court of Appeals to 
correct their mistakes." 

The chief justice tells me that he was once quite 
shocked during a trial in Chicago. There were two 
witnesses to be sworn, the Rev. Dr. Thomas, a con- 
scientious clergyman ; and broker Hutchinson, some- 
times called "Old Hutch." The probate judge was a 
very dignified man, and allowed witnesses to swear or 
affirm according to the dictates of conscience. 

Addressing Dr. Thomas, he said : 

"Now, Doctor, will you affirm, or take the regular 
oath?" 

"The Bible says 'swear not at all/ Judge," said the 
doctor; "so I prefer to affirm." 

After the doctor had solemnly affirmed, the judge 
asked Mr. Hutchinson : 

"Which do you prefer, the affirmation or the 
oath?" 

"I don't care a d n which," said "Old Hutch"; 

then smiling at the judge, he added, "You see the Bible 
says swear not at all, and I don't swear at all ; I only 
swear at my particular friends." 



244 ELI PERKINS— THIRTY YEARS OF WIT. 

Some of our best wit comes out through our city 
judges in their examination of prisoners. 

One day O'Rafferty was up before Judge Brady for 
assaulting Patrick Murphy, and this was the examina- 
tion : 

"Mr. O'Rafferty," said the judge, "why did you 
strike Mr. Murphy?" 

"Because Murphy would not give me a civil answer 
to a civil question, yer Honor." 

"What was the civil question you asked him?" 

"I asked him, as polite as yez plase, 'Murphy, ain't 
your own brother the biggest thafe on Manhattan 
Island, excepting yourself and your uncle, who is 
absent at the penitentiary in Sing Sing?" 

"And what rude answer did he give to such a very 
civil question?" 

"He said to me, 'Av course, prisint company ex- 
cepted'; so I said, 'Murphy, you're another,' and 
sthruck him wid me fist." 



EVARTS— CONKLING— GOVERNOR HILL. 



Many Legal Anecdotes — Depew Tells about Evarts and Bancroft — Evarts's 
Pig Pork — Chief Justice Waite on Conkling — W. S. Groesbeck and 
Senator Boutwell's Speeches at Johnson's Impeachment. 

WM. M. EVARTS, ex-Senator, and ex-Secretary of 
State under Hayes, like Webster and Clay, is 
too great a man to be president. Mr. Evarts is one 
of those great men like Beecher, who is never so undig- 
nified as to use an anecdote or joke without a purpose. 
If a laugh-provoking story comes in his way and it 
illustrates a point, he uses it. Beecher used to come 
right up to a joke in an extemporaneous sermon ; then 
he would stand a moment, his great soulful eyes would 
twinkle, and — the joke tumbled out ! It was a surprise 
to himself as much as to his audience. It was dignified 
because it was natural, and right in the line of his 
thoughts. 

Perhaps one of the best paradoxes ever uttered is 
attributed to Mr. Evarts. It occurred in Omaha, 
when Mr. Evarts was there with President Hayes and 
his cabinet. The occasion was an after-dinner speech ; 
and Mr. Evarts was complimenting the West in one 
of his characteristic long sentences. Said the Secretary, 
in one of those grave and eloquent flights of oratory : 

"I like the West; I like her self-made men; and the 
more I travel west, the more I meet with her public 
men, the more I am satisfied of the truthfulness of the 

245 



246 ELI PERKINS— THIRTY YEARS OF WIT. 

Bible statement that the — wise — men — came — from — 
the— East !" 

Of course there was great laughter. When President 
Hayes asked Mr. Evarts afterward how he happened 
to say it, the Secretary said he couldn't help it: "the 
paradox struck me and out it came." 

There is one other paradox as good as Evarts's and 
that was Mark Twain's duel story, when he told the 
audience how opposed he was to fighting a duel. 

"Why," said Mark, "I am so opposed to fighting a 
duel — so seriously and religiously opposed to fighting 
a duel — that I've made up my mind, solemnly and 
earnestly, that if any one ever comes to me and 
challenges me to fight a duel, I'll take him kindly by 
the hand, lead him gently out behind the barn, take 
an ax — and kill him !" 

Perhaps the best place in the world to hear good 
stories is after dinner on the back balcony of the States 
in Saratoga. It is an hour of rest and digestion, when 
such story-tellers as Governor Curtin, Mayor Latrobe 
of Baltimore, Senator Evarts, and Sam Cox — now gone 
to his reward — are always ready to furnish a salad of 
wit and rich reminiscence. It was on one of these oc- 
casions, when Mr. Evarts was feeling peculiarly happy, 
that I asked the great lawyer about some of the witti- 
cisms which have been attributed to him. 

"The best thing the newspapers said I perpetrated," 
replied Mr. Evarts, "I wasn't guilty of at all." 

"What was that?" I asked. 

"It happened when I was Secretary of State. Every 
morning the state department elevator came up full of 
applicants for foreign missions. One morning, when 
the number of applicants was extremely large, Catlin, 



EVARTS—CONKLING— GOVERNOR HILL. 247 

the Commercial Advertiser humorist, remarked, 'That 
is the largest collection for foreign missions you've had 
yet.' The newspapers attributed the saying to me, but 
Catlin was the real criminal." 

"After that you sent poor Catlin out of the country, 
didn't you?" 

"Oh, no. I rewarded him by making him Consul at 
Glasgow — and afterward promoted him." 

Speaking of Mr. Evarts's farm up at Windsor, I told 
him I understood that he raised a large quantity of 
pigs for the express purpose of sending barrels of pig 
pork to his friends. 

"Yes, I am guilty of that, Eli," said Mr. Evarts. "I 
have been sending Bancroft pig pork for years, and if 
his 'History of America' is successful, it will be largely 
due to my pen." 

A few years ago Mr. Evarts sent his usual barrel of 
pickled pig pork to Bancroft, with this letter: 

Dear Bancroft : 

I am very glad to send you two products of my pen to-day — a 
barrel of pickled pig pork and my Eulogy on Chief Justice Chase. 

Yours, 

Evarts. 

Chauncey Depew says Evarts once sent a donkey 
up to his Windsor farm in Vermont. About a week 
afterward the great lawyer received the following letter 
from his little grandchild : 

Dear Grandpa: 

The little donkey is very gentle, but he makes a big noise nights. 
He is very lonesome. I guess he misses you. I hope you will 
come up soon and then he won't be so lonesome. 

Minnie. 



248 ELI PERKINS— THIRTY YEARS OF WIT. 

Mr. Evarts is very proud of being descended directly 
from Roger Sherman, the Puritan shoemaker. 

"They were good men, those Rhode Island Baptists 
were," he said; "when they landed on the free soil of 
New London, they praised God ; that is, they fell on 
their knees ; then they fell on the aborigi — nese." 

When I asked the ex-Secretary about the early 
settlement of Rhode Island, he said : 

"Yes, the Dutch settled Rhode Island, and then the 
Yankees settled the Dutch." 

Mr. Evarts, with all his learning, has often had to lis- 
ten to long bursts of empty oratory from young and in- 
experienced lawyers. Many years ago, when Governor 
David B. Hill was practicing law, he had a case where 
Evarts was his opponent. Hill was delivering his 
maiden speech. Like most young lawyers, he was 
florid, rhetorical, scattering, and weary. For four weary 
hours he talked at the court and the jury, until every- 
body felt like lynching him. When he got through, 
Mr. Evarts deliberately arose, looked sweetly at the 
judge, and said : 

"Your Honor, I will follow the example of the 
distinguished but youthful counsel on the other side, 
and submit the case without argument" 

Then he sat down and an awful silence took posses- 
sion of the courtroom. 

Roscoe Conkling was a much younger man than Mr. 
Evarts, and he always looked up to the international 
lawyer with admiration. I have often heard Mr. 
Conkling tell the story of President Johnson's impeach- 
ment trial, and describe Evarts's reply to Senator 
Boutwell of Massachusetts. "Boutwell," said Conk- 
ling, "had just consigned the unfortunate President to 



EVARTS— CONKLING— GOVERNOR HILL. 249 

that unknown hole in the sky for punishment ; 'that 
place, that terra incognita in the sky where there are 
no stars, no light, no life — and there let him be con- 
fined through all eternity.' 

' 'Yes,' replied Evarts, 'it is meet, if the innocent 
President is to be punished, that he be taken to that 
unknown hole in the sky, where there is no law, where 
there is no justice, and where no statutes can be 
broken. And even now,' continued Evarts, in one of 
his forensic flights of eloquence, 'I see the President, 
the innocent President, passing up the dome of the 
Capitol ; his left foot kicks the Goddess of Liberty, 
and while all the people shout : 

Sic itur ad astra, 

Away he flies to the stars !' 

"Another clever bit of shrewd diplomacy during 
that memorable trial," said Mr. Conkling, "occurred 
when Wm. S. Groesbeck, while making the closing 
speech for President Johnson, looked tearfully at the 
granger senators, and with all the solemn tones of 
Marc Antony at the funeral of Caesar, said : 

' 'The President is not a learn-ed man, like many of 
you senators; his light is the feeble light of the Con- 
stitution.' " 

It was Groesbeck's sweet, sympathetic speech that 
acquitted the President. Speaking of the speech one 
day, Mr. Groesbeck said : "It was only a short speech — 
say two-thirds of a column, and it was really an ex- 
temporaneous speech. Boutwell and Evarts had been 
talking for days to the tired Senate. I had a long 
speech prepared, but saw the folly of using it. I was full 
of ideas and sympathy, for I liked Andrew Johnson." 



250 ELI PERKINS— THIRTY YEARS OF WIT. 

"Then that speech came from your heart?" 

"Yes, I threw away all notes, gave up all thought of 
oratory or my own reputation, and lost myself in that 
personal plea for a friend who tried to be as just as 
Aristides." 

Chief Justice Waite, who delighted to tell legal 
stories, once told me this story about Evarts and 
Conkling: 

Roscoe Conkling came into Mr. Evarts's office one 
day, when he was a young lawyer, in quite a nervous 
state. 

"You seem to be very much excited, Mr. Conkling," 
said Mr. Evarts, as Roscoe walked up and down the 
room. 

"Yes, I'm provoked — I am provoked," said Mr. 
Conkling. "I never had a client dissatisfied about my 
fee before." 

"Well, what's the matter?" asked Mr. Evarts. 

"Why, I defended Gibbons for arson, you know. 
He was convicted, but I did hard work for him. I 
took him to the Superior Court and he was convicted, 
then on to the Supreme Court, and the Supreme 
Court confirmed the judgment and gave him ten years 
in the Penitentiary. I charged him $3000, and now 
Gibbons is grumbling about it — says it's too much. 
Now, Mr. Evarts, I ask you if I really charged too 
much?" 

"Well," said Mr. Evarts, very deliberately, "of 
course you did a good deal of work, and $3000 is not 
a very big fee, but to be frank with you, Mr. Conk- 
ling, my deliberate opinion is — that — he — might — 
have — been — convicted— for — less — money." 



HENRY WARD BEECHER'S HUMOR. 



He Makes Fun of his Poverty — His Joke on Dana — His Every-day 
Humorous Talk and Life. 

DID you know Henry Ward Beecher personally?" 
asked a reporter of me. 

"Quite well. I've talked with him by the hour at 
his home, on the railroads, and at my own house in 
New York. He was always ready to talk with every 
man who had an idea or a good story. He hated 
cranks, and they were always calling on him." 

"What did he do with them?" 

"He always turned them over to Mrs. Beecher with 
the remark, 'Mother, you take care of this interesting 
man.' Beecher liked to talk of his early poverty. He 
always treated poverty in a humorous vein. 'Once,' 
he said, 'I was the poorest man in Lavvrenceburg, Ind., 
where I supplied my first church, away back in 1839. 
I was so poor that I couldn't buy firewood to keep 
us warm, without going without books. I remember 
one Sunday morning there came a big flood in the 
Ohio. I was preaching at the time, and I looked out 
of the window and saw the floodwood go sailing by 
my house. It seemed wrong for me to see so much 
good wood going by and I not able to catch it.' 

" 'What did you do?' I asked. 

' 'Why, I rushed that sermon through, hurried home, 
and that afternoon, with the aid of Deacon Anderson, I 

251 



252 ELI PERKINS— THIRTY YEARS OF WIT. 

got out enough driftwood to keep Mrs. Beecher in 
firewood for three months, and all the while,' he said, 
looking up and smiling at his wife, 'Mother stood in 
the doorway and cheered us on.' 

' 'In 1838,' said Mr. Beecher, 'I was so poor that 
I rode clear to Fort Wayne from Indianapolis on 
horseback and delivered a lecture for $25. Then I 
went to New York to attend the Congregational Con- 
vention. While in New York I went to Dr. Prime, of 
the Observer, and offered to write weekly letters from 
the West at a dollar apiece.' 
" 'Did Prime take you up?' 
" 'Yes — and paid me $5 in advance.' 
; ' 'And you actually wrote for a dollar a column?' 
"'No,' said Mr. Beecher, laughing; 'the next day 
Prime thought it over, repented of his haste and 
profligacy, and wrote me that he did not think my 
letters would be worth it. But, oh,' he groaned, turn- 
ing to Mrs. Beecher, 'it was a bitter disappointment to 
us — wasn't it, mother?' " 

One day, speaking of puns, Mr. Beecher said Mrs. 
Beecher received one on his name that was very 
complete. Then Mrs. Beecher went and got an old 
scrap book and read : 

" Said a great Congregational preacher 
To a hen, ' you're a beautiful creature ! ' 
The hen, just for that, laid three eggs in his hat, 
And thus did the Henry Ward Beecher." 

Mr. Beecher never cared to be called a humorist, 
but his wit and humor were as keen as his logic. He 
never strayed away from his train of thought to gather 
in a witty idea to illustrate his sermons. Neither did 



HENRY WARD BEECHER 'S HUMOR. 253 

he avoid wit. When a witty idea stood before him, 
he grasped it and bent it to illustrate his thought. 
His conception of wit was as quick as lightning. It 
came like a flash (often in a parenthesis), and it often 
instantly changed the tears of his hearers to laughter. 

When Dr. Collyer asked the great preacher why the 
newspapers were always referring to the Plymouth 
Brethren, but never spoke of the Plymouth sisters, he 
could not help saying: 

"Why, of course, the brethren embrace the sisters!" 

Mr. Wm. M. Evarts was once talking with General 
Grant about the great Brooklyn divine, when suddenly 
the distinguished lawyer musingly asked : 

"Why is it, General, that a little fault in a clergy- 
man attracts more notice than a great fault in an 
ordinary man?" 

"Perhaps," said the general thoughtfully, "it is for 
the same reason that a slight shadow passing over the 
pure snow is more readily seen, than a river of dirt on 
the black earth." 

In all of his humor, Mr. Beecher never harmed a 
human soul. His mirth was innocent, and his wit was 
for a grand purpose. 

I was talking with Mr. Beecher one day about 
humor. He was always ready to talk to any man who 
had a good idea or a good story, but he wanted the 
story to be as pure as a parable. He wanted it to 
prove or illustrate some idea. 

"Humor," said Beecher, "is everywhere. Humor is 
truth. If I describe a monkey or a crow truthfully it 
will be humor." 

"Well, describe a crow," I said, "and see if it will be 
funny." 



254 ELI PERKINS— THIRTY YEARS OF WIT. 

"A crow," said Beecher, "is like a man. He is lazy, 
and that is human ; he is cunning, and that is human. 
He thinks his own color the best, and loves to hear his 
own voice, which are eminent traits of humanity. He 
will never work when he can get another to work 
for him — a genuine human trait. 

"Even John Bunyan," continued the preacher, "was 
a humorist. It was humor when Bunyan made Chris- 
tian meet one 'Atheist' trudging along with his back to 
the Celestial City. 

' 'Where are you going?' asked Atheist, laughing at 
Christian. 

' 'To the Celestial City,' replied Christian, his face 
all aglow with the heavenly light. 

' 'You fool !' said Atheist, laughing, as he trudged on 
into the darkness. 'I've been hunting for that place 
for twenty years and have seen nothing of it yet. 
Plainly it does not exist.' 

"Heaven was behind him," said Beecher seriously. 

Mr. Beecher took immense delight in his Peekskill 
farm, though it was an expensive luxury. He had a 
thousand flowers and a thousand shrubs, and he knew 
every one of them. They were his pets. Sometimes 
he would get up at four o'clock in the morning, and 
when Mrs. Beecher asked him where he was going, he 
would say : 

"I'm going to talk with my flowers, mother." 

If any one asked him about the revenue of his farm, 
he would say, "Oh, I get that in health and joy, and 
in texts for my books and sermons!" 

Mr. Beecher was forgiving. He even forgave Mr. 
Dana, who said so many bitter things about him. Still, 



HENRY WARD BEE CHER'S HUMOR. 255 

he forgave him as you forgive your child after you 
have boxed its ears. 

About the last thing I heard him say about Mr. 
Dana was this : 

"Brother Dana said a smart thing to-day, Eli." 

"What was it?" I asked. 

"When they were discussing at the editorial conven- 
tion what was proper to put in a newspaper, Dana 
said, 'Well, gentlemen, I don't know what you think, 
but I'm willing to permit a report of anything in my 
paper that the Lord permits to happen.' But in my 
case," said Beecher, laughing, "Dana goes away be- 
yond Providence." 



GOUGH'S WIT AND PATHOS. 



His Fall and Rise — Many Goug-h Anecdotes — How he made his Audi- 
ences Weep and Laugh — Cigars in his Hat. 

JOHN B. GOUGH always amused me. We have 
often crossed paths in the lecture field, and often 
exchanged stones on the cars by the hour. Gough 
was always thoroughly in earnest, and at the same 
time he was a cheerful companion. Mr. Gough was 
a capital story-teller, and his greatest lectures were 
only a repetition of his every-day stories. He was so 
pure and had so many enemies among the intemperate 
classes that the faintest breath of scandal broke his 
heart. One time in Cleveland, Griswold, the "Fat 
Contributor," and "Nasby," wrote a humorous article 
about going on a spree with Gough, and the article, 
though humorous, and intended for a joke, troubled 
Gough for weeks. I can say I actually know that 
Gough, after breaking the pledge once, repented and 
again signed it in 1844, and kept it zealously afterward 
till he died. 

In a conversation with Mr. Gough in St. Joseph, 
Mo., in 1883, I asked the great temperance man where 
he was born? 

"I am an Englishman," said Gough. 4 T was born 
August 22, 18 1 7, at Sandygate, on the road between 
London and Dover, near Folkestone. There I used to 
roam through the hop yards of Kent, celebrate Guy 

256 



GOUGH'S WIT AND PATHOS. 257 

Fawkes's day, and eat hot cross buns on Good Fri- 
day. Here Wilberforce, the great philanthropist, 
often patted me on the head." 
"When did you come to America?" I asked. 

"Let's see ; it was August 4, 1829. I rode in a stage- 
coach to London, stayed there till June 10, and took 
the ship Helen for New York, arriving there August 3, 
fifty-four days on the ocean. I rode up the Hudson 
in a steamboat and took the canal to a farm near 
Vernon Centre, Oneida County, N. Y. After two 
years on the farm, I returned to New York and engaged 
with the Methodist Book Concern on Crosby Street to 
learn the trade of bookbinder. My mother and sister 
joined me here, but business becoming slack I lost my 
situation. I became intemperate, and we all became 
very poor. My mother died and was actually buried 
in the Potter's field without a shroud !" 

"It was then you got to drinking, wasn't it?" I 
asked. 

"Yes, I did it to drown my troubles. Often I went 
through the streets asking for work. 'Please let me 
saw your wood?' 

" 'Where is your buck-saw?' 

" 'I have none. Please let me carry your coal down 
cellar?' 

' 'Where are your shovel and basket?' 

" 'I have none.' 

"And so I lost my job for lack of implements and 
tools. Having been poor myself, do you wonder why 
I am always sympathizing with them?" 

"When did you stop drinking?" 1 asked. 

"In 1842, after I had been a drunkard for years. I 
signed the pledge in Worcester, Mass., which I have 



258 ELI PERKINS— THIRTY YEARS OF WIT. 

kept, with one exception, all my life. After that one 
false step I signed the pledge again. My friends took 
me .back, and I have consecrated my life to the cause 
of temperance. Oh, I could fill a book with amusing 
and affecting scenes that I have witnessed. I find 
every man can be touched through kindness." 

"What was the most pathetic scene you ever wit- 
nessed?" I asked. 

"It was on the steamer Daniel Drew, coming up the 
Hudson the other day. In the cabin sat a sad, serious- 
looking man, who looked as if he might have been a 
clerk or bookkeeper. The man seemed to be caring 
for a crying baby, and was doing everything he could 
to still its sobs. As the child became restless in the 
berth, the gentleman took it in his arms and carried it 
to and fro in the cabin. The sobs of the child irritated 
a rich man, who was trying to read, until he blurted 
out loud enough for the father to hear: 

" 'What does he want to disturb the whole cabin with 
that d baby for?' 

' 'Hush, baby ; hush !' and then the man only nestled 
the baby closer in his arms without saying a word. 
Then the baby sobbed again. 

"'Where is the confounded mother that she don't 
stop its noise?' continued the profane grumbler. 

"At this, the grief-stricken father came up to the 
man, and with tears in his eyes, said, T am sorry to 
disturb you, sir, but my dear baby's mother is in her 
coffin down in the baggage room. I'm taking her back 
to her grandmother in Albany, where we used to 
live.' 

"The hard-hearted man buried his face in shame, but 
in a moment, wilted by the terrible rebuke, he was by 



GOUGH'S WIT AND PATHOS. 259 

the side of the grief-stricken father. They were both 
tending the baby." 

"Do you ever tell funny stories about drunkards?" I 
asked. 

"Yes. It rests an audience. I used to tell about a 
drunken fellow who fell down a flight of thirty stairs 
in Erie, Pa. When a man came to help him, he said : 

" 'Go away, I don't want any help ; that's 'she way I 
alius come down stairs.' 

"The Bishop of Rhode Island told me he once saw a 
man, whom he had known years before, very drunk by 
the side of the road. He went to him and said : 

' 'My poor fellow, I am really sorry for you,' and 
went away. By and by he heard the man call, 'Bishop, 
Bishop !' So he went back. 

"Now,' he said, 'Bishop, if you are very sorry and 
you will say so again, I will forgive you.' 

"We laugh at such drolleries and at such vagaries as 
we do at the man who came home at four o'clock in 
the morning and said it was but one. 

' 'But/ said his wife, 'the clock has just struck four.' 
' 'I know better, for I heard it strike one — repeatedly!' " 

"What other funny incident do you remember?" 

"You have heard of the man who went into his 
house in the dark, haven't you?" 

"What about him?" 

"Well, he had been drinking and was very thirsty. 
He groped about for the water pitcher and found it. 
He lifted it to his mouth and began to drink very 
rapidly. One of his children had dropped a soft ball 
of yarn into the pitcher, and in his hurry he swallowed 
it. He felt something very disagreeable and strange, 
and he became frightened, and dropped the pitcher. 



260 ELI PERKINS— THIRTY YEARS OF WIT. 

" 'Oh, dear; oh, dear; oh dear!' He caught hold of 
the end of the yarn, and in great affright began to 
draw it from his mouth. 

"'Wife, wife/ he shouted, 'hurry up, hurry up, I'm 
all unraveling!' " 



A NIGHT WITH JOLLY REBELS. 



Eli Talks to Old Rebel Soldiers— Stories of old Zeb Vance, Fitz Hugh 
Lee, Judge Olds, Tom Allen, and Bob Toombs — The Pennsyl- 
vania Dutchman and Freedman Bureau School Marm. 

I^WICE I have been called to lecture before old 
Wofford College in Spartansburg, S. C. This is 
an historic institution, beloved by thousands of alumni 
all over the South. I always have a good time in the 
South, for the people are bright and heartily enjoy 
pure humor. But the last time I was there strange 
things happened. A band of old Confederates, who 
knew I was a Grand Army man, invited me to a 
banquet. After the banquet they demanded a speech. 
It was a speech of an old Yank soldier to a crowd of 
jolly rebs. I commenced telling them some of our 
good old Yankee war stories. I told them about a 
big cannon that they cast for West Point. 

"How did it work?" interrupted a rebel voice. 

"Well, it carried the biggest ball " 

"How did it work?" interrupted another voice. 

"Well, as I was saying, they shot that cannon off, 
but the ball was so large that it stood right still, and 
the cannon went twelve miles. [Laughter, and a voice, 
"Tell us about Sherman's bummers!"] 

"The difference between a true soldier and a 
bummer," I said, "is this: the true soldier drew his 
sword in the cause of right and country, while the 
bummer drew his sword in a raffle. 

261 



262 ELI PERKINS— THIRTY YEARS OF WIT. 

"I know of but one place where the true soldier and 
the bummer bore any resemblance. In the face of the 
enemy, when the balls flew thick and fast around him, 
the soldier's voice was still for war, and it was then 
that the bummer's voice was still for war — awful still. 
[Laughter.] 

"The last thing Lord Nelson did was to die for his 
country, and that will be the last thing the bummer 
will do. [Laughter.] 

"Horace Porter says", 'The bummer went to the war, 
fully equipped for "everything from squirrel hunting 
to manslaughter in the first degree," and his trousers 
were so loose and baggy that he could get over a 
barbed wire fence without scratching himself. When 
he wanted fuel on the march he took only the top rail 
of the fence, and he kept on taking the top rail as long 
as there was any fence left.' [Laughter.] 

"And now the bummer who got wounded by a 
chicken bone in his throat at Fairfax Court House, 
while the other brave soldiers were storming Chancel- 
lorsville ; who got dyspepsia eating sardines and jam 
with the Sanitary Commissioners in Baltimore, while 
the true soldier was losing his arms and legs at Gettys- 
burg, where is he now? Why, he is in Washington 
working for a pension." 

[A voice from the audience. "Tell us some rebel 
stories — we had more fun than the Yanks."] 

"That's right," I said. " There is no better way to 
heal old wounds than to laugh together over old war 
stories. 

"You all know old General Zebulon Vance — old 
Zeb, of the Army of Virginia?" 



A NIGHT WITH JOLLY REBELS. 263 

"You bet we do — three cheers for old Zeb Vance !" 
[Given with a will.] 

"Well, old Zeb received a squad of raw rebel recruits 
from the mountains of North Carolina, and during the 
skirmishes around Washington ordered them into bat- 
tle for the first time. 

'Take a stand on Monson's Hill,' he said, 'and 
scare these Yanks away!' 

" 'Skeer them Yanks off!' repeated the sergeant; 
'why, we 'uns kem all the way heah from North Kaya- 
lena ter whip them Yanks, an' ef we skeer 'urn off 
how'n thunder ez we gwine to lick 'urn?' [Laughter.] 

"During the first battle of Bull Run a squad of 
these same North Carolina recruits captured a Penn- 
sylvania Dutchman. He had to give up after he had 
shot his last cartridge. As the rebels came on to him 
they shouted : 

"'Here! what you doin' here?' 

"'Fightin'!' said the Dutchman. 

" 'Where do you belong?' 

"'Up in Pennsylvania.' 
' 'What are you doing down here?' 

" 'Veil, I comes down here to fight.' 

"'To fight, eh?' said the Virginians; 'why don't you 
fight up in Pennsylvania if you want to fight? What 
business have you got coming down into our State to 
fight?' 

" 'Veil, I corned mit der poys/ 

"'Well, you just light out for home!' screamed the 
rebels, 'and if we ever catch you down here fighting 
again we'll make it hot for you !' 

' 'Veil, veil, veil,' said the German. 'Oxscuse me, 



264 ELI PERKINS— THIRTY YEARS OF WIT. 

gentlemen, I tought ven I fights mit Uncle Sam he 
goes efryvere.' [Laughter.] 

' 'About a week after this, one of these same North 
Carolina recruits was on picket duty near Manassas. 
There was not a Yankee within twenty miles of him 
at that time. The next day there was to be an inspec- 
tion, and the North Carolinian had taken his gun all to 
pieces and was rubbing it up so as to make a shine 
when inspected. While doing this General Barham 
rode up. 

" 'What are you doing there?' said General B. 
' 'Oh, I am a kind of a sentinel. Who are you, any- 
how?' 

" 'Oh, I am only a "kind" of a brigadier-general,' was 
the answer. 

' 'Hold on,' said the sentinel; 'wait until I get this 
darned old gun together and I will give you a kind of 
a present arms.' [Laughter.] 

"There used to be a good deal, or rather, I should 
say, heaps of fun and repartee between the Yankee 
officers and the returning rebel prisoners at Rich- 
mond. 

"A cart load of these returning rebels had just 
arrived at City Point on their way back to Rich- 
mond. 

" 'How fah is it to Richmond, enny way?' asked a 
grizzled old rebel prisoner of a smart Yankee major on 
Butler's staff. 

" 'Oh, not far. How far do you think?' 

" 'Reck'n et's near ento three thousin' mile,' drawled 
the Confed. weakly. 

" 'Nonsense ! You must be crazy,' retorted the officer, 
staring. 



A NIGHT WITH JOLLY REBELS. 265 

" 'Wall, I eant a-reck'nin' adzact,' was the slow 
reply. 'Jest tho't so, kinder.' 

" 'Oh, you did ! And pray why?' 

" 'Cos et's took'n you 'uns nigh onto fo' year to git 
thar from Wash'nton.' [Laughter.] 

"You old rebels will appreciate this story about the 
Yankee freedman schoolmarm better than the average 
Northerner.* 

"In 1864, when they began to have freedman schools 
around Richmond, a Massachusetts teacher was teach- 
ing the freedmen the new doctrine of political equality. 
The negroes, you know, can never separate political 
equality from social equality, so when the teacher 
said, 'We are all born free and equal,' Clarissa Sophia 
broke in : 

"Wa' dat yo's sain', now? Yo' say Ise jes ekal as 
yo' is?' 

1 'Yes,' said the teacher, 'and I can prove it !' 

''Ho! 'Tain't no need,' replied the lately dis- 
enthralled. 'Reck'n I is, sho' nuff. But does yo' say 
dat Ise good as missus — my missus?' 

' 'Certainly you are, Sophia,' said the teacher. 

''Den Ise jess gwine out yere, rite off!' cried 
Sophia, suiting action to word. 'Ef Ise good as my 
missus Ise goin' ter quit, for I jess know she ent 'soshi- 
atin' wid no sich wite trash like you is !' [Laughter.] 

"The best and brightest remark ever made by that 
old rebel, whom you all love, Fitz Hugh Lee, was made 
in a political meeting in Alexandria after the war. 

"Colonel Moseby, your only fully reconstructed 
rebel, was making a political speech in the Court 
House. 

' 'Talk about my war record,' said the colonel. 



266 ELI PERKINS—THIRTY YEARS OE WIT. 

'Why, my war record is a part of the State's history. 
Why, gentlemen, I carried the last Confederate flag 
through this very town.' 

" ' Yes,' replied Fitz Hugh Lee, 'for I was here at 
the time.' 

*■' 'Thank you for your fortunate recollection,' grate- 
fully exclaimed Moseby. ' It is pleasant to know that 
there still live some men who move aside envy and 
testify to the courage of their fellow beings. As I say, 
gentlemen, my war record is a part of the State's his- 
tory, for the gentleman here will tell you that I car- 
ried the last Confederate flag through this town.' 

" 'That's a fact,' said Fitz Hugh Lee. T saw him 
do it. He carried the Confederate flag through this 
town, but Kilpatrick and Ellsworth were after him, 
and he carried it so blamed fast you couldn't have told 
whether it was the Confederate flag or a small-pox 
warning.' [Laughter.] 

''Speaking of rebel repartee, the worst stab our old 
Yankee Radical, Thad Stevens, ever got was given to 
him by your old fire-eating Bob Toombs, of Georgia. 
They met in Augusta after the war. Thad was rank- 
ling over the loss of his Carlisle furnaces, burned by 
the rebs in '63, and Toombs was rankling at every- 
thing in general. 

" 'Well, Mr. Toombs,' said old Thad, in a bantering 
tone, 'how do you rebels feel after being licked by the 
Yankees?' 

'"We feel, I suppose, a good deal as Lazarus did,' 
said the Georgia fire-eater. 

'"How is that?' 

" 'Why, Thad, poor Lazarus was licked by the dogs, 
wasn't he?' [Laughter.] 



A NIGHT WITH JOLLY REBELS. 26J 

"The difference between a Democrat and a rebel was 
nicely illustrated by the reply of a culprit in the Rich- 
mond courts. 

"Judge Olds was examining an old soldier who had 
pleaded guilty of bank robbery. 

" 'Did you have any confederates?' asked the 
judge. 

" 'No, Jedge,' said the prisoner, 'the fellers that 
helped me was Democrats, o' course, but they wasn't 
rebs.' [Laughter.] 

"Colonel Tom August, of the First Virginia, was the 
Charles Lamb of Confederate war wits; genial, quick, 
and ever gay. Early in secession days, a bombastic 
friend approached Colonel Tom with the query : 
1 'Well, sir, I presume your voice is still for war?' 

"To which the wit replied promptly : 'Oh, yes, 
devilish still!' 

"Later, when the skies looked darkest and rumors 
of abandoning Richmond were wildly flying, Colonel 
August was limping up the street. A quid nunc hailed 
him : 

' 'Well ! The city is to be given up. They're mov- 
ing the medical stores.' 

" 'Glad of it !' called back Colonel Tom, 'I'm glad the 
damn Yankees are going to get all that blue mass.' 
[Laughter.] 

"Tom Allen, of Mississippi, who always carried a 
load of rebel stories, told me that a man in the Fifth 
Mississippi regiment was noted for running away from 
every fight. On one occasion his captain found him in 
line as an unexpected attack opened. Standing behind 
him, the captain drew his pistol and said : 

' 'Now, John, up to this time you have run from 



268 ELI PERKINS— THIRTY YEARS OF WIT, 

every fight. You have disgraced yourself on all occa- 
sions. Now, if you stir from the line this time I in- 
tend to shoot you dead. I shall stand here, right be- 
hind you, and if you start to run I shall certainly kill 
you.' 

"John heard the captain through, and, drawing him- 
self up to an unusual height, replied : 

' 'Wall, Captain, you may shoot me if you like, but 
I'll never give any low-lived, low-down Yankee the 
privilege of doing it.' 

"At Murfreesboro a rebel soldier was rushing to the 
rear with all the speed he could command. An officer 
hailed him and sneeringly inquired why he was running 
so fast away from the Yankees. The soldier, without 
stopping, yelled back: 

'* Because I can't fly.' ' : [Laughter.] 

[A voice from the audience. "Did you kill any 
rebels, Eli?"] 

"Kill rebels?" said Eli. "Kill 'em myself? No, not 
exactly; but my Uncle William did. We marched 
out to Bull Run with Fitz John Porter, Uncle Wil- 
liam and I did, and when we got about half way there 
we met a rebel in ambush. He pulled out his revolver ; 
Uncle William and I pulled out our bowie knives, and 
then we both took the lead from the start and kept it 
clear into Washington City. [Laughter.] 

"When we reached Long Bridge there were hundreds 
of dead rebels behind us. They had run themselves 
clear out of breath and died from overexertion. 

"That battle of Gettysburg, too, was another terrible 
battle. Uncle William was there too, boldly fighting 
for three days — sometimes on one side and sometimes 
on the other. [Laughter.] 



A NIGHT WITH JOLLY REBELS. 269 

"I can see my Uncle William, with my mind's eye, 
fighting at the battle of Gettysburg, even as I saw him 
with my real eye fighting at the battle of Manassas, for 
I too was there — fighting for my country ; and while 
that sanguinary conflict was at its height, and while 
the leaden messengers of Death flew thick and fast 
around me, I — I left. [Laughter.] I narrowly es- 
caped a mortal wound — just by not being there. 

"At one time I saw a brigade of rebels coming up 
on the right, another brigade coming up on the left, 
and I just stepped aside and let 'em come up. 
[Laughter.] 

"Alas ! my uncle afterward fell in the battle of the 
Wilderness — but he got up again. [Laughter.] He 
said he didn't want to stand there and interfere with 
the bullets. [Laughter.] 

"Yes, my uncle was a patriotic man; he loved the 
glorious stars and stripes, loved to rally round the 
dear old flag, and he said he was willing to leave the 
thickest of the fight any time — just to go to the rear 
and rally around it !" [Loud laughter.] 



POLITICAL ANECDOTES AND INCIDENTS. 



General Butler and Sam Cox — Geo. W. Curtis's Anti-climax — Garfield's 
Irishman — McKinley's Interruption — General Alger's Story on the 
Democrat — Blaine's Kilmaroo Story — Eli on the Prohibitionist — 
Horr on the Mugwumps — Dan Voorhees on the Darky — Lincoln on 
Ben Wade — Voorhees on Tanner — Ben Wade Disgraces a Democrat 
— Aristippus, the Greek Politician. 

MANY a political orator has been totally routed in 
the middle of a campaign speech by an inter- 
ruption from a shrewd opponent. Many times have the 
oldest debaters in Congress been put hors de combat by 
a shrewd question or a quaint motion by a shrewd 
opponent. It was thus that Sam Cox was enabled to 
squelch General Butler after he had ridiculed the 
member from Ohio, in 1865, with his famous: 

"Shoo fly, don't bodder me!" 

Not long after this, Butler had been making a long 
speech on the tariff. Everybody was tired, but Ben 
would suffer no one to interrupt him. In fact, by the 
courtesy of the House, no one can interrupt a speaker 
unless to ask a question, and that with the consent of 
the Speaker. So Butler continued his tariff harangue. 
After about an hour had passed, Mr. Cox arose and 
said in a loud tone : 

"Mr. Speaker!" 

"The gentleman from Ohio," said the Speaker. 

"I arise," said Mr. Cox, "on a question of privilege. 

370 



POLITICAL ANECDOTES AND INCIDENTS. 271 

I wish to ask the gentleman from Massachusetts a 
question." 

"The gentleman from Ohio," said the Speaker, turn- 
ing to Butler, "wishes to ask the gentleman from 
Massachusetts a question." 

"Very well, go on !" said Butler. 

"The gentleman from Ohio has the floor," said the 
Speaker. 

Mr. Cox then arose solemnly, and said : 

"Mr. Speaker, I wish to ask the gentleman from 
Massachusetts a question. I wish to ask him if he 
hasn't — hasn't — got — m-o-s-t t-h-r-o-n-g-h?" 

Of course the laughter that followed completely up- 
set Butler, and he closed the debate. 

It was seldom that so finished an orator as George 
W. Curtis ever made a mistake ; but Mark Twain told 
me of a little incident that happened with Mr. Curtis 
at Hartford: 

"Mr. Curtis," said Mark, "was selected to make the 
final speech, in Hartford, in Lincoln's Presidential cam- 
paign in 1 861. It was the night before the election, and 
Mr. Curtis was in a hurry to catch a train. The great 
opera house was crowded, and the matchless orator had 
swayed the enthusiastic audience into repeated ap- 
plause. Finally the time came to end the speech, 
which Mr. Curtis always does with a flowery oratorical 
flight. But this time he was in a hurry, with his 
watch in his hand, and said : 

1 'And to-morrow, fellow-citizens, the American peo- 
ple will be called upon to give their verdict, and I 
believe you, as American freemen, will give that ver- 
dict against American slavery. [Applause.] Yes, to- 
morrow we will go to the polls with freedom's ballot 



272 ELI PERKINS— THIR T Y YEARS OF WIT. 

in our hands, trampling slavery's shackles under our 
feet ; and while the Archangel of Liberty looks down 
approvingly upon us from the throne of Omnipotence, 
we will consign Stephen A. Douglas to the pittomless 
bot!'" 

A loud guffaw from the fun-struck audience greeted 
Mr. Curtis as he ran to his carriage, but the eloquent 
orator never dreamed of his mistake till he received the 
Hartford Courant the next day. 

An oratorical interruption came near breaking up 
as skillful a political speaker as General Garfield. The 
general was making a speech for Lincoln and the war 
in Ashtabula in 1864. There were a good many Irish- 
men in the audience, who insisted on interrupting him : 

"I say, fellow-citizens, that victory has everywhere 
perched upon our banner. We have taken Atlanta, we 
have taken Savannah, we have captured Columbus 
and Charleston, and now at last we have taken Peters- 
burg and occupy Richmond ; and what remains for us 
to take?" 

An Irishman in the crowd shouted, ''Let's take a 
drink, General !" And the Irishmen dispersed in 
various directions. 

Major McKinley was somewhat discomfited while 
making a long tariff speech to the East Liverpool 
potters. He had talked for about an hour with most 
eloquent logic. "I am urging protection to American 
industry," he said, "for the sake of future generations. 
I am speaking for the benefit of posterity " 

"Yes, and if you don't get through pretty soon 
they'll be here!" shouted a witty free-trader. 

"Charley Foster, — that's what the boys call our Sec- 
retary of the Treasury out in Ohio, — well, Mr. Foster 



POLITICAL ANECDOTES AND INCIDENTS. 273 

had made a speech on the beauties of protection at 
Akron. His idea was that this is a billion dollar coun- 
try and we want to collect a billion dollar revenue and 
have it distributed back to the people by a billion dol- 
lar Congress. When he got back to the hotel he met 
Governor Campbell, the low tariff governor, who said : 

''You want to collect a billion dollars from the peo- 
ple and give it back to them again, do you?" 

"Well, that isn't wasting it, is it?" said Foster. 

"No," said Governor Campbell, "but it reminds me 
of Marshall P. Wilder's account of a conversation be- 
tween two Kentucky darkies. One said : 

" 'Hallo, how do you do?' 

" 'Oh, Ise fust rate; what's you doin?' 

' 'Oh, Ise been workin' for my mammy.' 

" 'Is you workin' for you' mammy? what is you doin' 
for you' mammy?' 

" 'Oh, Ise choppin' wood." 

''What does you' mammy give you for choppin' 
wood?' 

' 'Oh, she gives me a penny a day.' 

" 'And what you gwine to do wid the money?' 

' 'Oh, mammy's keepin' it for me.' 

1 'Well, what she gwine to do wid it?' 

" 'Oh, she's gwine to buy me a new handle for dis ax, 
when I wears out dis one.' " 

The best argument in a campaign speech is a good 
story. It acts like the parable. In fact, a good story 
is a parable. The puppy story, first told in the Lincoln 
campaign in i860, was perhaps the best political story 
ever told. It may be a chestnut and so are the para- 
bles in the Bible, but, like your mother's love, you 
never tire of it. 



2 74 ELI PERKINS— THIRTY YEARS OF WIT. 

A large Democratic meeting was held in Clermont, 
0., which was attended by a small boy who had four 
young puppy dogs which he offered for sale. Finally 
one of the crowd, a Democratic speaker, approaching 
the boy, asked : 

"Are these Democratic pups, my son?" 

''Yes, sir." 

"Well, then," said he, "I'll take these two." 

About a week afterward, the Republicans held a 
meeting at the same place, and among the crowd was 
to be seen the same chap and his two remaining pups. 
He tried for hours to obtain a purchaser, and finally 
was approached by a Republican, and asked : 

"My little lad, what kind of pups are these you 
have?" 

"They are Republican pups, sir." 

The Democrat who had purchased the first two hap- 
pened to be in hearing, and broke out at the boy: 

"See here, you young rascal, didn't you tell me that 
those pups that I bought of you last week were Demo- 
cratic pups?" 

"Y-e-s, sir," said the young dog merchant; "but 
they didrit have their eyes open the?i!" 

General Russell P. Alger was trying to prove one 
night, in a political speech, that the Democrats never 
had any policy except to oppose the Republican party 
and get into power. 

"They have just seven principles — five loaves and 
two fishes ; and they want those fishes bad. The Demo- 
crats," said the general, "remind me of old Zach Chand- 
ler's Democratic hired man. You see old Zach had 
three men working in a saw-mill in the woods below 
Saginaw. During Lincoln's last campaign, Zach went 



POLITICAL ANECDOTES AND INCIDENTS. 275 

up to the saw-mill to see how the men were going to 
vote. He found that each had a different political 
faith. One was a Democrat, one a Republican, and 
one a Greenbacker. A farm boy had just killed a fine 
woodchuck, and Zach offered to give it to the man 
who would give the best reason for his political faith. 

"I'm a Republican," said the first man, "because my 
party freed the slave, put down the rebellion, and never 
fired on the old flag." 

"Good !" said old Zach. 

"And I am a Greenbacker," said the second man, 
"because if my party should get into power, every man 
would have a pocket full of money." 

"First-rate!" said Uncle Zach. "And now you," ad- 
dressing the third, "why are you a Democrat?" 

"Because, sir," said the man, trying to think of a good 
Democratic answer, "because — because I want that 
woodchuck!" 

Senator Blaine's favorite political story when he was 
making speeches for Garfield was his Kil-ma-roo story. 

In the Garfield Presidential campaign, the Democrats 
were continually saying that Garfield would be a radi- 
cal president. 

"He and Blaine will get up a war with Germany 
about Samoa," they said ; "or get us into an imbroglio 
with France on account of the Suez Canal." 

To illustrate the Democratic status and prejudice, 
Blaine used this illustration : 

"Yes," he said; "the Democrats always see some 
trouble ahead with the Republicans, but it is always 
imaginary. They say the Republicans are going to 
wreck the republic by high tariff one day, and bankrupt 
the nation through the pension office the next. But all 



276 ELI PERKINS— THIRTY YEARS OF WIT. 

this trouble is imaginary. When we get to it it is 
gone. 

"The Democrats remind me of the story of the man 
who was carrying something across Fulton ferry in a 
close box. Every now and then he would open the 
box curiously, peep in, and. then close the lid mysteri- 
ously. His actions soon excited the curiosity of a 
naturalist who sat on the seat by him. Unable to con- 
ceal his curiosity further, the naturalist touched him 
on the shoulder and said : 

"'I beg pardon, sir, but I'm curious to know what 
you have in that box. What is it?' 

; ' 'Oh, I don't want to tell. It will get all over the 
boat.' 

" 'Is it a savage animal?' 

'"Yes; kills everything.' Then the man peeped in 
again. 

Still growing more curious, the naturalist begged 
him to tell its name. 

" 'It's a Kil-ma-roo from the center of Africa — a very 
savage beast — eats men and ' 

" 'And what do you feed it on?' interrupted the nat- 
uralist. 

"'Snakes, sir; plain snakes.' 

"'And where do you get snakes enough to feed 
such a monster?' asked the eager but trembling nat- 
uralist. 

' 'Well, sir, my brother in Brooklyn drinks a good 
deal, has delirium tremens, and when he sees snakes we 
just catch 'em and ' 

" 'But these are imaginary snakes,' argued the natur- 
alist. 'How can you feed a savage beast on imagin- 
ary snakes?' 



POLITICAL ANECDOTES AND INCIDENTS. 277 

1 'Why, the fact is,' said the man, opening the box 
and blowing in it, 'don't say a word about it, but this 
is an imaginary Kil-ma-roo.' " 

I used to tell a story after the Harrison campaign 
to illustrate the status of the Prohibitionists. The 
Prohibitionists voted against Harrison and against 
Warner Miller, — both practical temperance men, — and 
voted for Cleveland and for Governor Hill of New 
York, the latter running on a whisky platform. 

"It seems," I said, "that on election night a good 
religious Democrat in New York felt so bad at the 
defeat of Cleveland that he died — he just laid down 
and died and went down. But just before giving up 
his last breath he heard some wicked Republican talk- 
ing about high tariff, and he jumped back again to give 
the tariff one more kick. While the Democrat was 
kicking the tariff, we asked him how it was down below 
there." 

"It was pretty hot," he said, wiping his brow with 
his red bandana. "It was hotter'n New Jersey dur- 
ing the election." 

"Did you see any politicians down there?" 

"Oh, yes; a good many." 

"Any Democrats?" 

"Yes, and more coming." 

"Did you see any Republicans?" 

"A few — but thousands of mugwumps." 

"Did you see any Prohibitionists?" 

"Oh, yes! Every Democrat had a Prohibitionist, 
and that poor Prohibitionist was toasted all to a crisp." 

"Why, what toasted him?" 

"Well, the Democrats had been holding the Prohibi- 
tionists between them and the fire." 



27 8 ELI PERKINS— THIRTY YEARS OF WIT. 

Congressman Horr of Michigan was trying to illus- 
trate what he meant by a mugwump, and said : 

"We had a very wicked farmer up in Saginaw; very 
wicked. John Whitney was his name. One day 
he surprised every one by leaving the world and his 
wicked associates and joining the Baptist church. He 
remained an exemplary church member three days, but 
coming into town one day he got drunk and the church 
turned him out. 

" 'What then?' asked a bystander. 

"Well, Whitney came back into the world again, 
but the boys wouldn't speak to him. They even went 
so far as to hold a meeting in the Bellows bar-room 
and resolved not to receive him back. 'Whitney is 
too mean for us,' they said. 

' 'What became of poor Whitney when both the 
church and the devil refused to receive him?' you ask. 

"Why, there he was dangling between the church and 
the world. He wasn't anything. He was — well, he 
was just a mugwump!" 

Senator Daniel Voorhees, of Indiana, has always 
opposed the idea of allowing negroes, though they 
are citizens, to vote. He says they are not qualified. 
To prove their ignorance the senator tells this story : 

"One day an old negro, clad in rags and carrying a 
burden on his head, ambled into the Executive Man- 
sion and dropped his load on the floor. Stepping 
toward President Lincoln, he said : 

" 'Am you de President, sah?' 

" 'Yes, my man, I am the President.' 

" 'If dat am a fac', Ise glad ter meet yer. Yer see, 
I libs way up dar in de back ob Fergenna, an' Ise a 
poor man, sah. I hear dar is some pervishuns in de 



POLITICAL ANECDOTES AND INCIDENTS. 279 

Con'stution fer de cullud man, and I am 'ere to get 
some ob 'em, sail.' " 

When they were selecting the Quaker Indian Com- 
missioners, Lincoln called in Ben Wade and Voorhees 
and explained what kind of men he wanted to appoint. 

"Gentlemen, for an Indian commissioner," said the 
President, "I want a pure-minded, moral, Christian man 
— frugal and self-sacrificing." 

""I think," interrupted Voorhees, "that you won't find 
him." 

"Why not?" 

"Because, Mr. President, he was crucified about 1800 
years ago," said the senator. 

General Sherman tells a good story on Corporal 
Tanner, in which Senator Voorhees made one of his 
wittiest sallies. 

"The day that Corporal Tanner arrived at the In- 
terior Department to receive his commission as Com- 
missioner of Pensions," said General Sherman, Henry 
Watterson and Daniel Voorhees happened to be pres- 
ent. Tanner, every one knows, was as brave as a lion 
and lost both feet in the war. He was a private, with- 
out much education, and a very ordinary, loose-jointed 
but picturesque-looking man, and he has grown more 
picturesque with age. 

"As the corporal hobbled into Secretary Noble's 
room in the Interior Department, he saluted the sec- 
retary and said : 

"Hello, Gen'ral; come down to qualify; to be 
sworn in !' 

"'Ah! Corporal Tanner?' said the Chesterfieldian 
Noble. 

" 'Yes, Tanner — come to qualify.' 



280 ELI PERKINS— THIRTY YEARS OF WIT. 

1 'Let me introduce you to Senator Voorhees and 
Editor Watterson, Corporal/ said the secretary, suiting 
the action to the word. 

" 'Glad to see you, Senator,' said Tanner. 'Glad to 
see an honest enemy. While Jeff Davis was shooting 
off my feet, you and Watterson and Thurman were 
shooting us in the rear. Glad to see you !' 

" 'And you've come to Washington to get your com- 
mission and be qualified as Commissioner of Pensions?' 
remarked the Wabash senator. 

" 'You're right, I have,' said the corporal, his eyes 
twinkling with excitement. 

"'Well, I'll be dog-goned !' was the only reply, as 
Voorhees took a quid of tobacco and looked out of the 
window. 

' 'Yes, going to be qualified to-day,' continued Tan- 
ner. 

" 'Well, my friend,' said Voorhees, surveying the 
corporal from head to foot, 'this government is not in- 
spired — it is not Providence. Noble, its representative, 
can swear you in, but the Department of Education 
and all hell can't qualify you !' " 

Ben Wade was always bitter on the Democrats, and 
they didn't have much love for old Ohio Reserve 
Abolitionists. Ben said he asked a man once how he 
got so low as to be a Democrat. 

"Well, "said the man, "I did it to bring disgrace on 
an uncle of mine up in New York. You see he treated 
me very badly when I was a boy, and I took a fearful 
vow that I would do something to humiliate him, and 
I have joined the Democrats and done it." 

"What business is your uncle engaged in?" 

"He is making shoes in Auburn penitentiary." 



POLITICAL ANECDOTES AND INCIDENTS. 281 

"Well, you have disgraced him," snarled old Ben. 

I find in reading the old Greek that they had smart 
politicians and political demagogues in Greece. 

^Eschines says Aristippus studied sophistry to fit him 
to be a politician. It is certain that he toadied to the 
emperor Dionysius, and made a good deal of money 
out to him, even though Dionysius often called him his 
dog. Aristippus was so politic that he would never get 
mad at any indignity heaped upon him by Dionysius. 
Once the emperor even spit in his face, and when the 
attendants laughed, Aristippus said: 

"Oh, laugh. It pays me to be spit upon." 

"How so?" asked Plato. 

"Why, don't the sea spit salt on you when you catch 
a sturgeon?" 

"Yes." 

"Well, Dionysius spits pure wine on me while I am 
catching gold-fish." 

The logic of Aristippus pleased Plato and Socrates, 
and even Dionysius laughed at it when he heard of it. 

Diogenes, who wore old rags and ate cheap vegeta- 
bles, hated Aristippus, who dressed finely and ate with 
the king. One day, when Diogenes was washing pota- 
toes, Aristippus made fun of him. 

"If you had learned to live on plain vegetables like 
potatoes and cabbage," said Diogenes, "you would not 
have to be spit upon and cuffed around by Dionysius." 

"Yes, and if you tramps had learned how to be polite 
to the king, you might be drinking wine in the palace 
instead of washing vegetables in the market." 



FUN UP IN NOVA SCOTIA. 



Lecture Experiences in Acadia — Riding over Longfellow's Basin of 
Minas — Nova Scotia Potato Bugs — The Acadians Lie to Eli — Uncle 
Hank Allen's Biggest Potato Bug Story. 

LAST year my lecture trip took me to Acadia, Nova 
Scotia — sweet Acadia ! My audience was at a 
venerable college near Annapolis, and the next morn- 
ing the president gave me a ride over the Basin of 
Minas, the scene of Longfellow's "Evangeline." We 
passed over the very path where Evangeline had 
strolled with Basil the blacksmith. 

"Sir," said the professor, "that log building is the 
blacksmith's shop where Basil blew the bellows and 
shod the Huguenot oxen." 

"Then Longfellow's story was true, was it?" I asked. 

"Yes, the haughty Huguenots were banished by the 
cruel English, and many lovers were separated. The 
story of Evangeline is founded on fact, but the poet 
never visited the Basin, and his descriptions were incor- 
rect. Longfellow says, describing the Basin in his 
grand hexameter: 

" This is the forest primeval ; the murmuring pines and the hemlocks, 
Bearded with moss, in garments green, indistinct in the twilight — 

"But you see there are no hemlocks, nor pines. The 
Basin has always been a prairie." 

The water from the valley flows into the Bay of 
Fundy ; and the tide comes rushing in and out seventy 

282 



FUN UP IN NOVA SCOTIA. 283 

feet high. When the tide ebbs nothing is left in the 
basin but mud. This mud is what makes the great 
Nova Scotia potato crop. When the water goes down 
you will see the farmers hurrying to the bottom, where 
they fill their wagon boxes with silt and spread it on 
the plains above. The best potatoes in Nova Scotia 
are raised on this salt silt or mud. 

The Acadians are a sweet people, innocent and 
bright. It is always the most virtuous people who 
have the clearest imaginations and enjoy wit. Be 
virtuous and you will be happy ; I know it from my 
own experience ! 

In the field several bright fellows were hoeing pota- 
toes and I stopped to talk with them. I could see by 
certain winks and nods that a Yankee from the States 
was considered a subject for fun. 

"Do you have any potato bugs here in Nova Scotia?" 
I asked. 

"Pertater bugs in the Basin!" said one man con- 
temptuously. "Pertater bugs? Why, stranger, I 
counted 464 pertater bugs on one stalk in one field this 
morning, and in the other field they'd eaten pertaters, 
vines, fences, trees, all up, and they were sitting round 
on the clouds waiting for me to plant the second crop." 

After a moment's silence the second man looked up 
and said very earnestly : 

"Say, why don't you fellers tell the New York gentle- 
man something about the ravenous natures of our Nova 
Scotia pertater bugs ! Why, I had pertater bugs, this 
mornm, walk right into my kitchen, walk right up to 
a red-hot stove, yank red-hot pertaters right out of 
the oven, and — well, I wasn't surprised at all. I wasn't 
surprised. But," and he leaned forward confidentially, 



284 ELI PERKINS— THIRTY YEARS OF WIT. 

"I was surprised when I went into Townsend's store 
at dinner, to see pertater bugs walkin' all over Town- 
send's books to see who'd bought seed pertaters for 
next year." 

There was another long silence, but the depression 
was relieved by the third farmer, who had just arrived. 
He looked the speaker straight in the face and said : 

"Bill Monsen! you are a consarned old Nova Scotia 
liar!" 

There was more silence, and Bill walked right up 
to the stranger, smiled, put out his hand, and said: 

"My friend, whar'd you get 'quainted with me?*' 

A year afterward I was in Uncle Hank Allen's gro- 
cery in Eaton, N. Y., the town where I was born, and I 
told him about the Nova Scotia potato bugs. Uncle 
Hank Allen was perhaps (the present company and the 
reader excepted), the most stupendous prevaricator in 
Central New York. I wanted to astonish him. After 
I had finished the story about the big potato bugs, and 
the millions of them in Nova Scotia, I waited for a 
reply. After a long and oppressive silence, the old 
man said : 

"Those Canucks may have big potato bugs; I don't 
doubt it ; but we have the toughest potato bugs in 
Madison County that ever existed in this world." 

"How tough, Uncle Hank?" I asked. 

"Well, sir, old Gifford got a potato bug out of my 
garden and boiled it nine hours, and it swam around on 
top all the time." 

"Indeed!" 

"1 put a potato bug in a kerosene lamp, kept it there 
four years, and it hatched out twenty-seven litters of 
potato bugs right in the kerosene." 



FUN UP IN NOVA SCOTIA. 285 

"You astonish me !" 

"Yes," continued Uncle Hank ; "six years ago I took 
one of our potato bugs into Ward's iron foundry, and 
dropped it into a ladle where the melted iron was, and 
had it run into a skillet." 

Silence, during which Uncle Hank's mind wandered. 

"Well," as I was saying, my old woman, if my mem- 
ory does not fail me, used that skillet for six years, 
and here the other day she broke it all to smash ; and 
what do you think, sir?" 

"Well, what?" 

"Why, that 'ere insect just walked right out of his 
hole, where he'd been layin' like a frog in a rock, and 
made tracks for his old roost on the potato vines. But," 
he added, by way of parenthesis, "by ginger, he looked 
mighty pale !" 



ELI ON CHILDREN'S WIT AND BLUNDERS. 



Scientific Lecture before the Anthropological Section of the American 
Association for the Advancement of Science, Columbia College, as 
reported in the World. 

FOR years," said Eli Perkins before the American 
Association for the Advancement of Science at 
Columbia College, "I have tried to analyze children's 
wit or blunders. I find children do not blunder. We 
blunder in asking them questions* in an ungrammatical 
manner, while they answer correctly. To illustrate : 
One day little Ethel, who had a hard cold, was very 
proud when she came home from school. 

1 T was the best dirl in stool to-day,' she said, all out 
of breath : 'the best dirl in stool. I read better than 
Sabina, and dot up head.' 

1 'Wouldn't it sound better if some one else should 
say that, Ethel?' I asked. 

" 'Yes,' I dess it would. I'se dot a pretty hard told, 
and I tan't say it very well.' [Laughter.] 

"Alas! I had blundered. If I had asked her if it 
wouldn't have been more proper to let others do the 
praising, her answer would have been different and there 
would have been no joke. I asked her about sound, 
when I should have asked her about propriety. 

"Again, little Johnny said to his sister's sweetheart : 
" 'Mithter Jones, can't you walk straight f 
" 'Why, of course I can, Johnny ! Why do you ask?' 

286 



ELI ON CHILDREN'S WLT AND BLUNDERS. 287 

" 'Oh, nothin', only I heard sister May say, that 
when she married you she'd make you walk straight.' 
[Laughter.] 

"If Mary had used the word 'reform' in place of the 
ungrammatically cant phrase, 'walk straight,' a joke 
would have been lost and a lover saved. 

"Again, many speak of supporting a wife, when they 
mean they maintain her. Atlas supported the world, 
he didn't maintain it. 

"When I asked Ethel who supported the world, she 
said quickly : 

" 'Why, Atlas.' 

" 'But who supported Atlas?' 

"I had led her off; and, after thinking a moment, she 
said : 

" 'I s'pose he married a rich wife.' [Laughter.] 

"Dr. Collyer told me that one day he took up the 
old clumsy church catechism and asked a sweet little 
angel girl the old orthodox question: 

" 'What must you first do to have your sins for- 
given ?' 

"'What mus' I firs' do to have my sins fordiven?' 
she repeated thoughtfully. 'Well, I dess I must firs' 
do out and commit the sin.' [Laughter.] 

"The little child was more logical than grand old 
Jonathan Edwards. [Applause.] We often incor- 
rectly use the word engaged for betrothed, and the 
blunders resulting from this, often attributed to the 
green Irishman, should be laid at our own doors. 
Here is a case of a Yankee blunder, but the unphilo- 
sophical reader would put the blunder on the poor 
Irish girl. One evening I called on one of my neigh- 
bors, Mr. John R. Waters, who has four beautiful chil- 



205 ELI PERKINS— THIRTY YEARS OF WIT. 

dren. The servant who responded to the bell was a 
raw Irish girl. 

"'Are Mr. and Mrs. Waters at home?' I asked. 

" 'Yis, sur.' 

" 'Are they engaged?' 

" 'Engaged!' she exclaimed, with a horrified look. 
'Engaged, is it yez say? Why, they are married — mar- 
ried, and have children.' [Laughter.] 

"As Bridget disappeared down the kitchen stairs I 
heard her mumbling, 'What does he be insinuating?' 

"One of the most curious blunders which we blamed 
on our poor innocent and ignorant Irish girl, a mere 
child in intelligence, was really the blunder of her mis- 
tress. Poor innocent Bridget did exactly as she was 
told. Her mistress, whose husband I happened to be, 
called Bridget one day, and said inquiringly : 

" 'Bridget — let's see — what will we have for tea to- 
night? Oh,' suddenly recollecting something, 'we will 
have those quail for tea.' 

"'An' will yez be havin' quail for tay, mum?' said 
Bridget, in amazement. 

" 'Certainly, quail for tea. They are in the ice-box.' 

" 'Very well, mum,' said the poor child of nature, as 
she went back to the kitchen, muttering to herself, 'and 
sure and faith and did I ever hear the loikes of that in 
old Oirland? quail for tay!' 

"Tea time arrived, and with it the company. The 
table was spread, the tea was simmering, but no quail 
appeared. 

" 'Where are the quail, Biddy?' inquired my wife. 

" 'And sure they're in the taypot, ma'am ! Didn't 
you tell me we must have 'em for tay?' [Laughter.] 

The next day my wife gave her orders very plainly — • 



ELI ON CHILDREN'S WIT AND BLUNDERS. 289 

in fact, in a manner which she thought it would be im- 
possible to be misconstrued. She called Bridget and 
said : 

" 'You a- e so clumsy, Bridget ; the idea of quail for 
tea! Now listen attentively, and I will tell you plainly 
what we will have for breakfast. We will have plain 
boiled eggs, and I want you to boil these eggs exactly 
three minutes by the watch — by the watch, Bridget,' 
at the same time handing her the Geneva watch that I 
had given her as a bridal present. 'Now, do you under- 
stand ?' 

1 'Yis, urn ; sure an' its three minits by the watch,' 
repeated Bridget slowly. 

"The next morning, as my wife was pouring the 
French coffee, she asked Bridget if the eggs were boil- 
ing. 

' Tndade they are, mum. They be in the kittle with 
the watch.' 

" 'My watch in the kettle, Bridget ? ' 

' Tndade it is, mum ; and sure and didn't yez tell me 
to boil the eggs by the watch?' [Laughter.] 

"Alas! poor Bridget had obeyed orders literally, and 
still my wife will never believe that she herself made 
the blunder. 

"On another occasion my wife saw that Bridget had 
put on one of her dresses, and said : 

' 'Why, Bridget, isn't that my dress — my new dress?' 

" 'Sure, mum, it is, and it's yerself what gave it to 
me.' 

' T gave it to you !' said my wife, in astonishment. 

''Yis; yez said oi cud have it as soon as yez had 
worn it out, an' begorra! yez wore it out yestherday 
afthernoon.' [Laughter.] 



290 ELI PERKINS— THIRTY YEARS OF WIT. 

"Old Mrs. Partington, Mr. Shillaber's dear old lady, 
was in her second childhood, and Mr. Partington was 
always blundering and charging it to the old lady. 

" 'I can't bear children,' blundered Mr. Partington. 

" 'If you could, perhaps you would like them better,' 
accurately answered Mrs. Partington. [Laughter.] 

'A mother's blundering question often elicits a quaint 
reply from a child. To illustrate this: 

''Little Charlie was eating pie while his hungry 
brother Willie was looking on wistfully. After Charlie 
finished the last piece he burst out crying. 

"'What are you crying for, Charlie?' asked his 
mother. 

" 'For more pie, mamma ; there ain't no pie left for 
poor Willie.' 

"A child often seems to blunder when it is reasoning 
logically all the time. It is following one train of 
thought, while its mother is following another. To 
illustrate : 

"Ethel's Episcopalian mother was reading her Sab- 
bath school lesson to her when she came to the verse : 

" But when they next saw Joseph they found him in a position 
of great authority and power, and 

"'Joseph was king, wasn't he, mamma?' interrupted 
Ethel. 

" 'No, Ethel, he was not king, but he was very high — 
next to the king.' 

"'Oh, I know, mamma, he was Jack — Jack high!' 
[Laughter.] 

"Alas ! I am afraid we worldly Episcopalians must 
teach our children more of the Pentateuch and less 
whist. My astonishment and grief at Ethel's worldli- 



ELI ON CHILDREN'S WIT AND BLUNDERS 291 

ness was only equaled by my astonishment that many 
of you scientific clergymen here are up on the techni- 
calities of the joke. [Laughter.] 

"But the kind words and gentle sympathy of the chil- 
dren often teach us true politeness. They often teach 
us the lesson of the Saviour, 'Do unto others.' If the 
greatest scientist in the audience should ask a child 
who is the best gentleman, he would say 'one who 
never gives pain,' and 'a saint is one who always gives 
us joy.' What a lesson of Christianity and politeness 
did I learn from a little child one day ! 

"One windy winter morning a poor little ragged Irish 
newsboy was selling newspapers on Brooklyn bridge. 
It was cold, and the boy had left a sick mother and a 
hungry little sister at home. Everybody was cold to 
him ; but by and by a pretty little girl came up, all 
smiles, and bought a paper; then looking at his ragged 
clothes the tears came into her eyes and she said : 

;< 'Poor little fellow, ain't you very cold?' 

" 'I was, Miss, before you passed,' he replied. 

"It did not cost a cent, this kind word, but oh. it 
made him so happy ! 



FROM COLLEGE TO COWBOY. 



Funny Introductions— The College Senior Rattled — Lecturing on Gettys- 
burg Battlefield — With the Cheyenne Cowboys — Dead Shot Bill— 
A Joke or your Life — Poker in the Cheyenne Sabbath-school — Back 
to Sweet Berea — Lecturing a Princeton Foot-ball Team — Doubtful 
Compliment at Portsmouth — Why I Write Books. 

I HAVE often had funny introductions at colleges, 
but the fun has generally been accidental. I have 
lectured before about every college in the United 
States. 

At Dennison University (Ohio), the bright young 
sophomore who introduced me had made quite a rep- 
utation as a graceful introducer. He had introduced 
Joseph Cook and Talmage and Phcebe Couzins. Now, 
a name is an easy thing to forget. I invariably have 
the name of the town where I lecture written on a piece 
of paper before me. If I didn't do this, when I came 
to call it it would disappear. Take a name like Ypsil- 
anti; how can any one remember it ? I remember of 
seeing an old lady in great distress one day on the 
Lake Shore train. She had misplaced her ticket and 
forgotten the name of the town to which she was going. 
The good woman fussed and sighed and was all torn 
up. 

Finally, as the train passed Hinsdale, she caught the 
conductor spasmodically by the coat-sleeve and ex- 
claimed : 

" The next station is my place, isn't it, conductor ?" 

292 



FROM COLLEGE TO COWBOY. 293 

" I can't tell you," said the conductor. " I don't 
know the name of the place you are going to. What's 
the name? " 

"Why, I don't remember," said the old lady, with a 
puzzled look. " It is a very queer name, though." 

" What does it sound like? " asked the conductor. 

" Why, like ridin'-on-a-scantlin', and " 

"Oh! Ypsilanti is the place, madam," said the con- 
ductor, while all the passengers smiled. 

At Dennison University the confident sophomore 
started off his introduction like this : 

Ladies and Gentlemen : I have the pleasure of introducing to 
you a gentleman whose name is as familiar as household words 
wherever the English language is spoken. Let me introduce to 
you — to you — Mr. — Mr. 

" Phcebe Couzins ! " I whispered. 

" Mr. Phcebe Couzins," said the young man, while 
all the audience laughed. 

The young man did not notice the mistake at the 
time, and never realized it till told of it after the lecture. 

At Gettysburg College the lecture was in the opera 
house, and a staid old college professor, who had 
been a preacher for thirty years, introduced me. The 
old clergyman had made no preparation for the in- 
troduction, depending entirely on the inspiration of 
the occasion for the words to express the sentiments 
of the moment. We entered from behind the scenes, 
the clergyman a little ahead, when the audience com- 
menced cheering. 

" Sh — ! " he said, raising both hands ; " don't cheer 
me. I'm not Eli Perkins, I'm not his Uncle Con- 
sider, nor his man servant, nor his maid servant, nor his 
ox, nor his — nor his — his " And there he stuck, 



294 ELI PERKINS— THIRTY YEARS OF WIT. 

while his hands kept gesturing till the whole audi- 
ence broke into boisterous laughter. Of course it is 
hard to make the types express what a ludicrous mis- 
take had been made. 

I spent the next day looking over the battlefield of 
Gettysburg. I was in the fight on the third day there 
and saw both Sickles and Hancock after they were 
wounded. The battlefield had not changed except the 
trees. These new trees should be cut down. There 
were places in the field where on the day of the battle 
we could see for miles, where the trees obscure every 
view, now. I am afraid Cemetery Hill will soon be a 
great dense wood. 

The battlefield is now covered with thousands of 
marble monuments* Almost every regiment that 
fought in that battle have since placed a monument 
on the field to show where they bivouacked, fought, or 
fled. But there wasn't much fleeing that day. The 
whole Army of the Potomac was drawn up three miles 
long. You could stand in the center on Cemetery Hill 
and see the right and left. Never before had the army 
fought in such narrow limits, and the reason was : the 
Union army had got ready to retreat on Baltimore. 
Baggage wagons were sent to the rear. Meade made 
a last stand before retreating and, providentially, won 
the battle. 

The vast number of monuments on the field recalls 
a story which they tell at the pension office : 

" One day a shaky old man limped into the pension 
office to apply for a pension. 

" ' Where were you wounded ? ' asked Commissioner 
Tanner. 

" ' At Gettysburg, sir.* 



FROM COLLEGE TO COWBOY. 295 

Gun-shot wound? ' 

No, a monument fell on me.' " 



But, oh, my terrible experience in Cheyenne ! 

I found Cheyenne, Wyo., one of the wickedest places 
in the world when I visited it twelve years ago. It 
was a town of saloons, dance houses, and faro banks. 
Travelers for the Black Hills used to stop at Cheyenne 
and commit the last wicked act before burying them- 
selves in the hills. Of course all this is changed now. 
While there, I wrote a letter to the New York Sun 
about " the wickedest town on earth." The humor 
of it amused the people and especially delighted 
McDonald, the manager of the leading dance house. 
He dramatized my letter, calling it " Eli among the 
Cowboys," and the play was enacted for many nights. 
I was the hero of the play, and was represented as a 
captured humorous lecturer. In the play three cow- 
boys leveled their revolvers at the hero and compelled 
him to deliver a humorous lecture, or tell a funny joke, 
or die on the spot. It was funny to see a man, sur- 
rounded by desperadoes, and telling jokes to save his 
life. At the conclusion of a funny speech they would 
all dance around me with cocked revolvers, singing: 

First Cowboy. 
I'm the howler from the prairies of the West, 
If you want to die with terror, look at me. 
I'm chain-lightning; if I ain't, may I be blessed. 
I'm the snorter of the boundless perarie. 

Chorus. 
He's a killer and a hater ; 
He's the great annihilator ; 
He's a terror of the boundless perarie. 



296 ELI PERKINS— THIRTY YEARS OF WIT. 

Second Cowboy. 

I'm the snoozer from the upper trail ; 

I'm the reveler in murder and in gore ; 

I can bust more Pullman coaches on the rail 

Than any one who's worked the job before. 

Chorus. 

He's a snorter and a snoozer ; 

He's the great trunk line abuser ; 

He's the man who put the sleeper on the rail. 

Third Cowboy. 

I'm the double-jawed hyena from the East ; 
I'm the blazing bloody blizzard of the States ; 
I'm the celebrated slugger, I'm the beast ; 
I can snatch a man bald-headed while he waits. 

Chorus. 

He's a double-jawed hyena ; 

He's the villain of the scena ; 

He can snatch a man bald-headed while he waits. 

At Cheyenne I saw Dead Shot Bill. He wore long 
hair, a sombrero, and carried four pistols in his belt. 
They said he had just arrived from Leadville. They 
had recently started a new street car line in Cheyenne, 
and Dead Shot Bill was on the car — a personified 
arsenal. 

"Fares! " said the gentlemanly conductor. 

" W-h-a-t ?" yelled the man of terror. 

" Fare, please; five cents, please!" said the polite 
conductor. 

" I pays nothing" scowled Bill. 

Then the conductor stopped the car and called a 
policeman. The policeman came, and said, as he 
looked at Bill from head to foot : 



FROM COLLEGE TO COWBOY. 297 

" So you won't pay your fare ? " 

" No, I'll die first. Dead Shot Bill pays nothin'." 

" But I am obliged to put you off if you don't pay 
your fare," said the policeman, rolling up his sleeves. 

" You jes' try it," said Bill, with glaring eyes. 

The policeman took another look at the walking 
arsenal, thought a moment, and then quietly dropped 
a nickel in the box. 

" I guess that is the easiest way to adjust this case," 
he said, as he went whistling along on his beat. 

" Well," I said to myself, " here's the double-jawed 
hyena from Bitter Creek, sure ; the ruffian of romance 
that I've been looking for." Then I whispered to 
Bill's partner : 

" Say, has he really killed anybody?" 

" Killed anybody? You betcher life. More'n you've 
got fingers and toes on you. Why, that's Dead Shot 
Bill. Never has to waste a second cartridge. Always 
takes 'em an inch above the right eye." 

" Is he a robber ? " asked several of the passengers 
at once. 

" Naw ! He ain't nothin' of that sort. He kills for 
sport. Wouldn't steal nothin'." 

" Might 1 inquire if he has shot any one quite 
recently?" asked an English tourist, beginning to 
tremble. 

" Waal, no ; not since a week ago Friday, that I can 
recollect on." 

This was carefully noted down by a stout, fat gen- 
tleman, who appeared to be all ears, and looked as 
though he, too, might be an English tourist. 

" Why don't the authorities make any attempt to — 
to restrict his amusement?" 



298 ELI PERKINS— THIRTY YEARS OF WIT. 

"Authorities? Guess not. Why, he's sheriff him- 
self of this county, and since he shot the last judge 
for fining him for contempt of court when he shot a 
lawyer that had the impudence to say that a fellow 
the sheriff had taken in for stealing a horse wasn't the 
right man, there hasn't been anybody who felt like 
taking his place." 

A moment afterward a quiet-looking stockman sat 
down beside me, but as soon as Bill saw him he turned 
pale, jumped off the cars, and ran up the railroad 
track. 

" He's gone to kill somebody ! Oh, he's gone ! " 
shrieked a passenger. 

" Who's gone ? " said the stockman. 

" Why Dead Shot Bill ; d'you know him ? " 

" Know him ! " said the stockman ; " why, of course 
I do. I've known him since he came from the East, 
and I hired him to look after a flock of sheep, but 
I've had to let him go because he was afraid to leave 
the ranch on account of the Indians — in his mind. I 
guess he saw a mouse on the car." 

The secretary of the Cheyenne Y. M. C. A. boarded 
the train with me. He was going to the Y. M. C. A. 
convention in Boston. He was a lovely fellow, born in 
worldly San Francisco, raised among the miners of 
Nevada, and educated at Boulder. He literally ful- 
filled the scriptural injunction "be ye wise as serpents 
and harmless as doves." 

On the train we met a man who introduced himself 
as Colonel Brewster from Boston, and he introduced 
his companion as Professor Dwight of Harvard Col- 
lege. At Julesburg they suggested to my Y. M. C. A. 
friend a quiet game of euchre. 



FROM COLLEGE TO COWBOY. 299 

During an animated religious conversation, three 
aces were thrown to my Y. M. C. A. companion, after 
which Professor Dwight gayly remarked, with the 
greatest coolness, " I wish that we were playing poker. 
I don't know that I have been favored with such a 
hand for years." 

My religious Y. M. C. A. friend immediately saw the 
game of the sharpers. He looked up innocently, and 
remarked : 

"I have been highly favored also. I have a pretty 
good poker hand myself." 

The three looked at each other significantly, and 
finally my Y. M. C. A. friend remarked : 

" They call you Professor Dwight from Harvard ? " 

" Yes." 

" And they call you Colonel Brewster of Massa- 
chusetts? " 

-Yes." 

" You are both from the East, I believe ?" 

" Yes, from Boston." 

"Well, gentlemen," he continued, rising, "you had 
better take the next train back. We meet it just 
the other side of Kearney. You can't make a cent at 
this. We have been teaching it in the Sunday-schools 
in Cheyenne for years." 



What a sweet change it was, after my startling ex- 
periences in Cheyenne, to talk a few days later to that 
sweet old German Lutheran College in Berea, O. 
Berea is where all the grindstones come from. The 
students say that even they have been sharpened by 
the grindstones. I suppose this is why they call a 
studious student a "grind." 



3°° ELI PERKINS— THIRTY YEARS OF WIT. 

Berea is a pure old moral town. Everybody goes to 
church there ; and the church service is as silent and 
impressive as the shadow of a great rock in a weary 
land. The Sunday after my lecture there however, ac- 
cording to the Cleveland Leader, the church was terri- 
bly shocked. 

It seems that in the Sabbath-school, Elder Cleve- 
land, after he had finished reading the Bible lesson, 
commenced questioning the children. 

" Now, children," he said, as he looked benignly at 
the front row of little ones, " I have been reading to 
you about what the Prophet Samuel said to Eli. Now 
can any of you tell me what Samuel said? " 

There was no answer. 

"What? " exclaimed the clergyman, " can't any of 
you remember what Samuel said to Eli when I have 
just read it to you from the Bible ? " 

" I know — I know ! " said a little girl, holding up 
her hand triumphantly. 

" Well, my little girl, I am glad you paid such close 
attention. Now you may tell the older children what 
Samuel said. What did he say ? " 

" He said * Git there, Eli ! Git there, Eli ! ' " answered 
the proud little girl. 

Alas ! My lecture before the Schiller Society of 
the University the night before had done the busi- 
ness. The little girl had caught the answer from the 
street boys, who had been shouting " Git there, Eli ! " 
all day. 

The Berea incident reminds me of a Sabbath-school 
child's answer in Portland, Ore. After lecturing for 
the Y. M. C. A. there, I was asked to say something to 
the Sabbath-school scholars on Sunday evening. Now 



FROM COLLEGE TO COWBOY. 3 QI 

my talks are " keyed up " to college audiences, or 
church audiences, which are about as keen of apprecia- 
tion as college audiences. I could not think of any- 
thing to talk about, so I looked at the children and said : 
" Now, children, about what shall I talk to-night? " 
" About three minutes," said a little girl. 
The witty answer convulsed the church with 
laughter, and, the ice once broken, I had no trouble 
afterward. 



The toughest and most boisterous audience I ever 
lectured to was at Princeton College. The Yale foot- 
ball team had just beaten the Princeton boys, and they 
all came to the lecture. They had guyed Oscar Wilde 
off the platform on a previous occasion. To hold them 
quiet I had to boil down my lecture into stories. I 
said: 

" Gentlemen, I see you are all in a great hurry to- 
night. I noticed you were all in a hurry, during the 
ball match. But speaking of being in a hurry, I met a 
Yale man in Hartford the other day who was in the 
greatest hurry I ever saw a man in — he was in such a 
fearful hurry that he joined the church by letter, took 
the lightning train for New York, and sent his photo- 
graph back for baptism." 

Of course this quieted the boys down, and we spent 
the hour very pleasantly. 

Before the lecture the Yale team, all tired out, went 
to the hotel. After resting a spell I heard a tired and 
yawning student say : 

" Landlord ! Landlord. I say, landlord, is there 
anything quiet in the amusement line going on in 
Princeton to-night?" 



302 ELI PERKINS— THIRTY YEARS OF WIT. 

" Well, there's Eli Perkins's lecture at the Y. M. C. A., 
and—" 

"Oh, that's too active. He'll keep us laughing and 
thinking. We want something restful. We want 
sleep — quiet sleep." 

" Oh, well, then," said the landlord, catching at a new 
idea, " try Joseph Cook on ' Evolution ' at the Methodist 
church. That comes the nearest to bedtime of any- 
thing in Princeton to-night." 

It was after the lecture that the Princeton boys told 
me a good story on Dr. McCosh, the venerable presi- 
dent of the college. They said the doctor came before 
the rational psychology class in a very thoughtful 
mood. The subject of the lecture was terminology, 
and the doctor was burdened with thought. Aftet 
to the class the venerable president said : 

"Ah, young gentlemen, I have an impression! an 
impression! Now, gentlemen," continued the doctor, 
as he touched his head with his forefinger, " can you 
nodding tell me what an impression is?" 

No answer. 

" What, no one knows ! No one can tell me what an 
impression is," exclaimed the doctor, looking up and 
down the class. 

" I know," said Mr. Arthur. " An impression is a 
dent in a soft place." 

" Young gentleman," said the doctor, removing his 
hand from his forehead and growing red in the face, 
"you are excused for the day." 



I had quite a remarkable experience at Swarthmore 
College in Pennsylvania. This is a Quaker college. 
Here I saw hundreds of sweet, beautiful Quaker girls, 



FROM COLLEGE TO COWBOY. 303 

and as many handsome young men. The very atmos- 
phere is pure and angelic around Swarthmore. I 
told my Quaker story here, which amused the young 
people. 

The Quaker Indian commissioners were looking after 
the Indians in the West then, and had recently returned 
to Philadelphia. 

The " Broad Brims" landed, carpet-bag in hand, at 
the West Philadelphia station, when an Irish hack- 
driver, who chanced to have a broad brim also, stepped 
up, and to ingratiate himself into their good graces 
passed himself off as a brother Quaker. 

" Is thee going toward the Continental Hotel ? " 
asked the hack-driver. 

"Yea, our residences are near there," replied the 
Quakers. 

" Will thee take my carriage ?" 

" Yea, gladly." 

As they seated themselves the hack-driver asked 
very seriously : 

" Where is thoiis baggage ? " 

About the funniest incident in my lecture experi- 
ence happened at Portsmouth, N. H. I have told the 
story in print before, but made Max O'Rell the hero 
of it, while it really happened to myself. 

When I got on to the Boston and Maine train the 
next morning after my Portsmouth lecture, I was 
accosted by a very nicely dressed young gentleman, 
who said, as he advanced toward me with a smile : 

"I beg pardon, sir, but are you the gentleman who 
delivered the Y. M. C. A. lecture last night?" 

" I am," I said, with some pride. 

"Well, I want to thank you for it. I don't know 



304 ELI PERKINS— THIRTY YEARS OF WIT. 

when I ever enjoyed myself more than when you were 
talking." 

" You are very complimentary," I said, taking the 
young man warmly by the hand. " Very complimen- 
tary. I am glad my humble effort was worthy of your 
praise." 

" Yes," continued the young man, " it gave me 
immense pleasure. You see I am engaged to a Ports- 
mouth girl, and her three sisters all went, and I had 
my girl in the parlor all to myself. Oh, it was a happy 
night — the night you lectured in Portsmouth ! When 
are you going to lecture there again ? " 



I have often been asked why I adopted the profes- 
sion of literature, and why I became a lecturer. Mr. 
Dana, the great encyclopedian, once asked me the 
question in the Sun office : 

" Now tell me," he said, "what caused you to 
abandon your profession of law and become an au- 
thor and lecturer ? " 

" Well," I said, " I did study law once at the Col- 
umbia College Law School, Washington, D. C. In 
fact, I was admitted to the bar. I shall never forget 
my first case. Neither will my client." 

" What was the case ? " 

" I was called upon," I said, " to defend a young 
man for passing counterfeit money. I knew the young 
man was innocent, because I lent him the money that 
caused him to be arrested. Well, there was a hard 
feeling against the young man in the District of Col- 
umbia, and I pleaded for a change of venue. I made 
a great plea for it. I can remember, even now, how 
fine it was. It was filled with choice rhetoric and pas-, 



FROM COLLEGE TO COWBOY. 3°5 

sionate oratory. I quoted Kent and Blackstone and 
Littleton, and cited precedent after precedent from 
the ' Digest of State Reports.' I wound up with a 
tremendous argument, amid the applause of all the 
younger members of the bar. Then, sanguine of suc- 
cess, I stood and awaited the judge's decision. It 
soon came. The judge looked me full in the face 
and said : 

" ' Your argument is good, Mr. Perkins, very good, 
and I've been deeply interested in it ; and when a case 
comes up that your argument fits, I shall give your 
remarks all the consideration that they merit. Sit 
down !' 

" This is why I gave up law and resorted to lectur- 
ing, authorship, and writing for the newspapers." 

" Yes, I dare say," replied the great encyclopedian, 
and then, as he looked over his glasses, and scratched 
his head with a blue pencil, he continued: "But your 
veracity has been so often " 

Then a feeling of regret closed the lips of the 
speaker, and the world will never know the end of the 
sentence. 



THE END. 



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